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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) addressed the current U.S. border crisis on Fox News Sunday by rebuffing the Biden administration, which recently blamed former President Trump for the current border crisis.
“The administration, for some reason claims that, and it’s false,” he said to Chris Wallace. For the senator, it was actually the Democratic administration that caused this crisis by reversing three highly effective policies.
“First, the public health exclusion order, they lifted it as it relates to minors. Well, guess what we have now at the border? A lot more minors. That’s not a surprise.”
The second policy that was dismantled by Biden and which triggers the border crisis for Cotton, is the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which was intended to receive migrants at the border, allow them to make an asylum claim, but keep them in that country until the process formally began, rather than letting them stay in the U.S. with unstable immigration status.
“Finally, we have the so-called safe third country agreement with countries like Guatemala, which says that if you go through a country that is not your own seeking asylum, you have to make that asylum application in the first country you go through. That’s the international standard,” Cotton told Fox.
In Cotton’s view, Biden can restore those three policies, which would begin to solve the border crisis.
Wallace went on to comment that Secretary Mayorkas said the border is secure, but it is closed. Cotton responded that the border is “wide open.” The saturation that the system is experiencing, in the senator’s opinion, means that there will be an increase in drug trafficking.
Organized crime takes advantage of the border crisis
Criminal organizations have benefited from the ongoing border crisis. Criminals who smuggle immigrants, from children to entire families, have made as much as $14 million per day in February, according to Border Patrol sources.
“Many of these vulnerable populations use their life savings. Some are essentially indentured servants,” revealed former Tucson Border Patrol Chief Roy Villareal. “Human trafficking is a multi-million dollar industry,” he commented, “Some of these migrants are asked to transport narcotics or some type of crime to pay off a different part of their debt,” Villareal added.
Rafael Valera, Venezuelan, student of Political Science, political exile in São Paulo, Brazil since 2017 // Rafael Valera, venezolano, es estudiante de Ciencias Políticas y exiliado político en São Paulo, Brasil desde 2017