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Tags: cotton | fema | border | immigration

Sen. Cotton: FEMA Deployment to Border Acknowledges 'Disaster'

tom cotton speaks in hearing
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) speaks during U.S. Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland's confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on February 22, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Demetrius Freeman-Pool/Getty Images)

By    |   Monday, 15 March 2021 09:50 AM EDT

The Biden administration is admitting the immigration situation at the nation's border with Mexico is a disaster by its decision to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency there, Sen. Tom Cotton said Monday. 

"That's what it is when you deploy FEMA, a disaster," the Arkansas Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "They are by their own declaration admitting it's a disaster."

The Biden administration has refused to refer to the high numbers of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border as a crisis, but Saturday night, the Department of Homeland Security announced that FEMA would be sent in to help with the situation. 

Almost 4,000 unaccompanied migrant children are currently being held in border detention facilities, in addition to 8,500 children being kept at longer-term Health and Human Services shelters, reports The Washington Post.

"We were building a wall and turning away all migrants who had no right to cross into our country," Cotton said Monday. "The Biden border crisis, though, was created by Joe Biden's promises of amnesty and open borders, free healthcare for illegals during the campaign. That's why border crossings have increased every month since the election."

Meanwhile, the "contrast is remarkable" between President Joe Biden's administration and that of former President Donald Trump's, said Cotton. 

"The Biden administration stopped building a wall on our southern border, and they put up fences around our Capitol," said Cotton. "So I guess walls don't work if it's defending American sovereignty, but they work just fine protecting Democratic politicians. The contrast couldn't be starker."

There is, he added, no need for National Guard troops to remain at the Capitol, where they have remained stationed since the Jan. 6 attack during the confirmation of the Electoral College's vote for Biden. 

"I've repeatedly asked the Capitol Hill security leaders what is the specific and credible threat to the Capitol complex that requires this extraordinary step," he said. "They say there is no specific, credible threat. They cite general or vague concerns, and now they continue to cite the prospect that Joe Biden will be addressing a joint session of Congress. Look, if we keep thousands of National Guard troops in a sense around the Capitol until Joe Biden is finally ready to speak in public, they may be there for a very long time."

Cotton on Monday also discussed his grilling of Vanita Gupta, a former Justice Department civil rights child and nominee for the department's number-three leadership position. 

During his questioning, Cotton asked her about her past comments concerning "implicit racial bias" and asked her if she harbors biases of her own. 

She responded that she is "quite aware" that she holds stereotypes but that she is a "product of her culture" and that "all of us are able to manage the bias but only if we can acknowledge our own."

Cotton said Monday he learned from her response that the "emperor has no clothes."

"When I asked her very simply against which races do you hold racial bias, obviously, she got tongue-tied, couldn't answer the question," he added. 

"It just goes to expose what a foolish claim it is to slander our entire nation, to say that every single person has racial biases, as opposed to saying America is a great nation and Americans are a good people," said Cotton. "This is a radical, trust fund liberal nominee who will use the laws of the United States to advance her far-left agenda. That's why she faces such opposition on our committee and in the Senate as a whole. This is not the kind of person that Americans expect to be enforcing our laws."

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.


Politics
The Biden administration is admitting the immigration situation at the nation's border with Mexico is a disaster by its decision to deploy the Federal Emergency Management Agency there, Sen. Tom Cotton said Monday. "That's what it is when...
cotton, fema, border, immigration
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2021-50-15
Monday, 15 March 2021 09:50 AM
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