Former President Donald Trump traveled to south Texas to view the migrant crisis situation at the Rio Grande Valley portion of the 2000 mile border wall on June 30.
Newsmax reported that Trump spoke to law enforcement officials at an uncompleted section of the Border Wall. He lauded the officials who, in his opinion, are “still doing a great job,” and said the project was the ”best border we’ve ever had in the history of our country.”
Abbott, considered a possible 2024 presidential candidate, asked Joe Biden to resume construction of the wall.
We designed a wall that was terrific, you know, you see it as steel, but it’s not really steel on the outside. It’s hardened concrete on the inside of the bollards. And then it’s also rebar and it’s a very heavy rebar, and a very powerful rebar, very strong rebar steel, so we had steel, concrete and steel…they’ve got to really want to get through and we’ve had almost no instances of that.
Former President Donald Trump on the cancelled Border Wall project.
Trump pointed out that the Biden administration’s relaxation of hard-line immigration policies had amplified smuggling of drugs like fentanyl and illegal immigration.
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He said, “The real question, do they really want open borders or are they incompetent? There’s only two things you’re either incompetent. Or for some reason, you have a screw loose and you want to have open borders.”
Trump said foreign countries are now emptying their prisons, and that is part of what is contributing to the migrant crisis, “They do it very slowly, because they don’t want people to know this, but I know it. And they’re letting all of their murderers, rapists, drug dealers, the human traffickers out, and they’re coming into the United States of America at a level like we’ve never seen.”
Democrats representing the state lambasted the visit. Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX) said in a statement, “Let’s make one thing clear: the narrative of a violent and insecure border region is blatantly false. The border is not a war zone, and the wall Abbott and Trump are trying to get Texans to pay for is not only a waste of their hard-earned money but also an un-American symbol of hatred that separates and intimidates our communities, harms our wildlife, and encroaches on landowner rights.
Among the policies that Biden cancelled is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) project called Operation Talon, a nationwide operation focused on removing illegally present convicted sex offenders from the country.
So far Border Patrol agents have arrested 353 illegal immigrants this fiscal year on charges of sex-related crimes, many with a history of prior convictions involving minors.
During the same period in 2020, Border Patrol had only apprehended 55 such criminals, resulting in a 542 percent increase. Reports also cite the number of young unaccompanied children picked up at the border in March was the highest on record.
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency encountered 180,034 people attempting to enter America along the Southwest border in May. Compared to the 23,237 encounters in the same month last year, there was a 674 percent increase.
According to the Washington Examiner, at a briefing on border security in Weslaco between Texas politicians and law enforcement Trump stated, “We have a sick country, in many ways. It’s sick in elections, and it’s sick at the border. And if you don’t have good elections and you don’t have a strong border, you don’t have a country.”
Trump also lamented the border wall’s poor condition after the project was cancelled, saying,”It would have been painted, not sitting there rotting and rusting. It would have been ‘perfecto.’ It was all set.”
Trump blasted the Biden administration for reversing the policies he’d put in place.
“All they had to do was leave it alone,” he said.
“We designed a wall that was terrific, you know, you see it as steel, but it’s not really steel on the outside. It’s hardened concrete on the inside of the bollards. And then it’s also rebar and it’s a very heavy rebar, and a very powerful rebar, very strong rebar steel, so we had steel, concrete and steel…they’ve got to really want to get through and we’ve had almost no instances of that.”
