Responding to Vice President Kamala Harris' comment that "we have a secure border," Georgia Republican Rep. Drew Ferguson tells Newsmax that the southern border is "nowhere near secure."
Speaking with "American Agenda" on Tuesday, the congressman says that the vice president's comment to "Meet the Press" on Sunday is "disingenuous."
"The question I [would] ask," Ferguson continued, "how would she even know, she doesn't go down there?"
"I have been to the border. I've been to the Texas border. I've been to the Arizona border, and what's happening down there is absolutely horrific. It's bad for America. It's bad for Americans. The policies that the administration has put in place on the border do not put America and Americans first."
During her interview with Chuck Todd on Sunday, Harris juxtaposed her statement of the border being a priority "for any nation, including ours and our administration" with "we also have to put into place a law and a plan for a pathway for citizenship for the millions of people who are here and are prepared to do what is legally required to gain citizenship."
Todd did not ask any further follow-up questions to Harris about the record number of migrant encounters or the migrants who are being flown or bussed around the country.
But Harris's statement comes as a departure from comments in 2021 when she qualified the administration's efforts to secure the border with this: "I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come. Do not come."
When Harris spoke during the news conference in June of last year with Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei, she maintained that migrants making the trek to the southern border would be "discouraged" from coming and that "the United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur, but we, as one of our priorities, will discourage illegal migration. And I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back."
Shortly after Harris's speech, the vice president was met with strong pushback from a coalition of Democratic congress members.
In response, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that "this is disappointing to see. First, seeking asylum at any U.S. border is a 100% legal method of arrival. Second, the U.S. spent decades contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America. We can't help set someone's house on fire and then blame them for fleeing."
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, as of July, the number of southwest land border encounters totaled 199,976. So far, the total number of land border encounters for fiscal year 2022 has exceeded 2021. In 2021, the total southwest encounters were 1,734,686. In 2022, the data for which goes only to July, the number of encounters are 1,946,780.
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