The United States has always welcomed immigrants and will continue to do so, but there has to be a process that controls who is coming into the country, Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said Wednesday.
"What's happening on the border is a deliberate effort to test that system and to sort of create a crisis around it," the Florida Republican told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
"I don't want to see images of kids being hit with tear gas and women and people running from that. No one likes those images. What they didn't take pictures of is the hundreds and hundreds of people not women and not children who were throwing rocks and bottles at law enforcement authorities."
The migrants weren't only attacking U.S. Border Patrol agents, said Rubio, but also Mexican authorities, and there was enough that warranted the use of tear gas to bring the situation under control.
"What we need to do now is (put up) physical barriers on the border that allow us to control the flow of traffic," said Rubio.
The United States also needs to reexamine what it is doing to help countries like Honduras and Guatemala deal with the reasons people want to migrate, said Rubio, as "that's the ultimate border security."
However, if a wall is to be built, it must be along all 800 miles, the senator added.
"Half of it is is good as none of it," he said. "It's actually safer for everybody. "
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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