‘It Was a Mistake’ for Biden to Open Border Without Plan: Andrew Cuomo

Andrew Cuomo, then New York governor, speaks during a news conference in New York City on May 10, 2021. Mary Altaffer-Pool/Getty Images

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo critiqued President Joe Biden’s management of the U.S.–Mexico border on Feb. 9, holding that the president’s policy decisions on that front had been made in error.

“It was a mistake for President Biden to open the border without having a plan to handle the tremendous flow of people,” Cuomo said on the Feb. 9 episode of his weekly “As a Matter of Fact” podcast. “Politicians make promises in campaigns—that’s what they do. But government officials, professionals, need to understand the consequences of enacting those promises.”

The Democrat, who resigned in August 2021 amid allegations of sexual harassment and criticism of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, also conceded that the southern border states had been justified, to a degree, in their reactions to Biden’s policies.

“The southern states were right that opening the border created a tremendous hardship for them to handle,” he said. “They were right that the federal government was not prepared. But they were wrong in using migrants as political pawns and shipping them all around the country.”

However, the ex-governor added that he felt Biden had taken a step in the right direction with the policy changes he announced last month, which include increasing the use of expedited removal to expel illegal immigrants who cannot be removed under Title 42, tripling refugee admissions from Latin American and Caribbean countries, and expanding a parole program for Venezuelan nationals to include Haitians, Cubans, and Nicaraguans.

The new measures, Cuomo said, could deter migrants from traveling to the United States as word spreads that the government is “curbing immigration.”

Border Crisis

As for the effects of the immigration crisis on his own state, Cuomo held that his successor, Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, should have done more to address the problem at the state level.

“First of all, New York City should have never accepted responsibility on its own,” he said. “In my opinion, the mayor should have said that New York state needed to handle the problem. Yes, New York City is a sanctuary city, but New York state is a sanctuary state. This was a state problem.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in October over the influx of illegal immigrants in his city. Since then, he has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of how the problem has been handled at the state and federal levels.

“We are at our breaking point,” Adams said on Jan. 13.

Cuomo’s comments on the border crisis came on the heels of a Feb. 7 House Oversight Committee hearing on the matter.

“Why is this happening?” Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) asked at the hearing. “Starting on his first day in office, President Biden signaled to the world our borders were open—open to criminals, human traffickers, and drug traffickers. His administration’s policies have eroded deterrents and stripped away enforcement tools.

“President Biden immediately ended enrollments in the migrant protection protocols, which required inadmissible aliens who remain in Mexico while their immigration case was adjudicated,” Comer continued. “He halted construction of border barriers even though Congress had appropriated nearly $1.4 billion for wall construction just a month before.”

However, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the panel’s top Democrat, held that Republicans were to blame for the ongoing problem of illegal immigration.

“The political problem is that when it comes to working out common sense immigration policy solutions, Republicans driven by the extreme MAGA wing of their party have been systematically thwarting and derailing comprehensive efforts to improve our immigration system and strengthen border enforcement.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.