Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Wednesday told Newsmax that 26 Republican governors have created an "interesting compact" with their task force to tackle illegal immigration. However, she said it doesn't go far enough to stop the border crisis and should include sending members of their states' National Guard units to her state and Texas.
"We need armed National Guard members there because we're going up against narcoterrorists, these cartel members, and we need to stop people from entering our country when they pull back Title 42, because it's 18,000 people a day pouring in," Lake, whose campaign has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, said on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "We need boots on the ground."
She said the governors involved in the task force "need to change up this compact and call this what it is, an invasion at our southern border. They need to call to enact their Article 1 authority. I didn't see any indication of funding that would go toward this, and they also need to have a plan for detaining people who come here illegally and removing them."
Lake said Trump knew how to secure the border, while President Joe Biden "doesn't know what he's doing, or he's complicit and he wants the border to be open.
"I'm not sure which one it is," she told Bachman. "I'm starting to think he wants the border to be open and he wants this invasion."
Lake said she's glad that the debate and discussion are happening, but she insisted that Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who is spearheading the task force with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, has had a copy of her border plan since Jan. 4 and is using pieces of it, but he needs to take a "full measure" of the situation.
"We've got to have people on the border stopping people from coming in," Lake said. "Right now they just pour right in and then they become our problem."
She also called the move by Abbott and others to put immigrants on buses and send them to Washington, D.C., Delaware, and other places "really cute," but said that's still keeping the migrants in the United States.
"We need to send these buses back to the border and unload them back across the border," she said. "[We need to] get tough with Mexico and say, look, we're not going to allow your trucks to come in. We're not going to allow this open business that we have. If you're not going to help protect us from these people coming across our border."
The country needs to play hardball as Trump did, she added, "because we've got Joe Biden, an illegitimate president sitting in the White House who is not doing anything to protect this country and protect our state."
The cartels, meanwhile, are "pushing in a weapon of mass destruction" with their drug trafficking, said Lake.
"We've got to start treating these people, these cartel members as what they are, terrorists, and stop it at the border before it even comes across," said Lake. "I think that we're starting to see a little bit of movement toward that. My message to these governors is to take that one big step, call it what it is, an invasion, and put some teeth into this pact and stop these people and these drugs from coming over once and for all."
Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, FUBO and major OTT platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV's including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizio and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here
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.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.