It's "ridiculous" that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would blame the border crisis on a "political stunt" staged by Republicans when it was President Joe Biden who eliminated former President Donald Trump's actions on immigration, Rep. Claudia Tenney said on Newsmax on Tuesday.
"Under President Trump, we were starting to build a wall and getting it completed," the New York Republican commented on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "The Democrats obstructed every step of the way. We had the remain in Mexico policy. We enforced Title 42, which is a public health statute to protect American citizens from many eradicated diseases in upstate New York. We have illegal immigrants testing positive for tuberculosis and other diseases that are dangerous to our border agents, to our society, and our people."
But Biden, on his first day in office, "rolled back Trump's orders and used the court system to stop Title 42, which could be very effective now, with a lot of these diseases coming across the border," said Tenney.
In addition, the Biden administration is "spending billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money" to fly immigrants all over the country and into New York, while blaming Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, said Tenney.
"This is directly the fault of Joe Biden and the Democrats' refusal to deal with the border," she said. "Now we're seeing a crisis, even in places like upstate New York, where we also have a northern border. It's a humanitarian crisis as well."
Meanwhile, cartels have "operational control of our borders, and they are enriching themselves," said Tenney. "They're profiteering off of the lives of innocent people, in many cases being given false asylum claims by these border agents. Fentanyl and dangerous drugs are killing our communities."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, in an interview this weekend, called on Republicans to work with Biden on the border, and Tenney called that "incredible."
"These people continue to maintain sanctuary cities, continue to take billions in taxpayer dollars," Tenney said. "Kathy Hochul in the last budget put a billion dollars in new taxes to pay for illegal immigrants, giving them incentives to get them in here. Who wins on this? The cartels again are profiting."
And in the case of Hochul, "New York taxpayers are losing," said Tenney.
"They attempted to force this, Kathy Hochul along with Mayor [Eric] Adams from New York City onto the local governments in upstate New York," she added. "But I am so proud of my local governments. I represent 12 counties and almost every one of them fought back.
And now, Hochul and Biden are "backpedaling," said Tenney. "Growing numbers of New Yorkers are against this migrant crisis, and they want the Democrats to do something about it. We need to focus on this. And as Republicans, it is the single biggest issue facing us along with inflation and the economy. We are harming our taxpayers, undermining their relative wealth."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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