Kinzinger: 'Disturbing' Evidence at Border Merits National Emergency Declaration

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., on Sunday said he supports President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border after seeing “disturbing” evidence of human trafficking and drugs.

In an interview on CBS News’ "Face The Nation," Kinzinger, who served with the Air National Guard, said he just returned from a visit of the southern border and “went down there kind of undecided.”

“If this was just an issue of immigration it wouldn't constitute a national emergency but what I saw was really disturbing,” he said, mentioning a woman “hunkered down in the desert because her coyotes who brought her over deserted her because they wanted to get away.”

“She's going to be deported, but that was a way better option than being one of the 200, at least, bodies they end up finding in the desert every year,” he said.

“I don't think the actual migration or the calling for asylum isn't of itself a crisis,” he added. “But you now have a massive amount of people doing that. But I'll tell you what I saw was a lot of people coming over the border, a lot of drugs in the border and a lot of human trafficking.”

Kinzinger said he won’t vote to try to block the emergency declaration.

“I wish this would have happened a different way,” he said. “I voted for comprehensive immigration reform. … like I said …if this was just about immigration I would disagree. I do think this is a security threat. It's a security threat with the amount of drugs coming over the border and the human trafficking that I've seen.”

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