Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday dug into the Biden administration’s southern border policy, arguing there “doesn’t seem to be any interest” from the White House in curbing illegal migrant crossings.
Kennedy, during an interview with Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends,” recalled his experience traveling to the border and claimed he witnessed buses, owned by Mexican drug cartels, bring more than 100 migrants across the border. Kennedy claimed he interviewed one bus of migrants, and only two passengers on board claimed they were crossing the border for asylum purposes.
“ And it's really — it's astonishing that the Border Patrol is utterly demoralized,” Kennedy said. “You could stop this very quickly. And it doesn't seem to be any interest in the Biden administration doing it.”
The White House hopeful said he would “stop it overnight” if elected to the Oval Office in November.
“What we need is to complete the 27 gaps in the wall,” he said. “You don't need a wall from Brownsville, Texas, 2,200 miles to San Diego. But you need the physical barrier in those highly populated zones, where migrants can disappear very quickly. So there’s 27 big gaps where everybody is coming through. In rural areas, you need to restore the fences that were torn up …by the administration.”
He also called for installing long-range cameras, lights and sensor equipment at the border, as well as the placement of asylum judges at the border to rule on cases there.
Kennedy is among a series of political figures, mostly from the right flank, who are pushing the Biden administration to take stricter action at the border to curb illegal crossings.
Kennedy backed Texas last week in its ongoing battle with the federal government about border authority, arguing “Biden’s failure to secure the border” is forcing states to take matters into their own hands.
Republican Gov. Texas Greg Abbott insisted the fencing and razor wire the Lone Star State installed was necessary for the state’s security, and he rejected the Supreme Court’s ruling last week that federal border agents could remove the razor wire.
President Biden on Friday vowed to shut down the border “when it becomes overwhelmed” if Congress passes a bipartisan border security bill, which remains stalled in negotiations.
“Let’s be clear,” Biden said in a statement Friday. “What’s been negotiated would — if passed into law — be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country. It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law.”
The campaign team for Kennedy, who switched from a Democratic presidential candidate to an independent last year, is pushing for his support in the Lone Star State. The campaign said earlier this month it created a party in Texas under the name the “Texas Independent Party” to get Kennedy on the state’s ballot.
The Hill has reached out to The White House for comment.
