Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), in an interview Saturday with The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program, called President Joe Biden’s immigration policies an “abject failure” that is empowering the cartels and fueling a rush on the U.S. border.
Roy made the remarks at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in Orlando, where he alleged that Biden was not “faithfully executing laws” relating to border security and is allowing the “radical left” to dictate America’s immigration policy.
One of the actions the report cautioned about is the expansion of administrative amnesty policies, which former President Donald Trump sought to curb by enacting at least five rules since the beginning of 2019 that officials said were designed to address asylum claims that don’t have merit and to confront a sharp increase in border arrests. The Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), dubbed the “Remain in Mexico” program, was one such Trump-era policy under which asylum-seekers were made to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings.
The Biden administration on Feb. 12 announced a plan for tens of thousands of people who are seeking asylum and have been waiting in Mexico under the MPP program to be allowed into the United States while their cases make their way through immigration courts. The first wave of an estimated 25,000 asylum-seekers with active cases in the “Remain in Mexico” program began to be allowed into the United States on Feb. 19.
“It’s causing an empowerment of cartels,” Roy said. “And it is causing an attraction of human beings to come here where they think they’re going to get here and get amnesty, and a rush to our border.”
Roy called Biden’s immigration policy a “wide open borders” approach that endangers the lives of American citizens as well as the lives of immigrants who are seeking to come to the United States.
“There are immigrants in stash houses being abused,” he said. “There are immigrants being abused on the journey. There are cartels that are using these people for profit. That is happening right now. And it is happening because Democrats are irresponsible and refuse to secure our border.”
Roy argued that a secure border “doesn’t mean anti-immigrant” but rather is part of a “safe means for immigrants to come to the United States, under our laws, respecting the rule of law.”
“It’s better for America, better for Mexico, better for Central America, better for everybody around the world,” he said.
Roy said Biden was known as “kind of a law enforcement guy,” and pointed to his support for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was aimed at reducing illegal immigration along the southern border.
“He came at a perspective of—while still being to the left to where I would be—at least some sort of rational consideration in the past about what we need to do at our border,” Roy said.
The law authorized about 700 miles of fencing between the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as the use of more vehicle barriers, checkpoints, and the use of advanced technology like unmanned aerial vehicles to curb illegal immigration.
But now, Roy said, Biden is “completely allowing the radical left to just decide what this policy is going to be.”