Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he wouldn’t even consider an immigration amnesty until he is sure the border is secure.
“I don’t think anybody can talk credibly about giving amnesty or any other of those allusions until we can assure Americans that the borders are closed,” Kennedy told The Epoch Times.
He called the question of amnesty a “secondary issue” to the broader matter of border security.
He added that it’s an issue that’s “a lot easier to solve, with a lot less poison and vituperation, if Americans know that the borders are now sealed.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do until we do that.”
Asked what his first actions in office would be if elected, Kennedy said he'd seek bipartisan consensus on important issues. The border was the first such issue that the nephew of President John F. Kennedy referenced.
“We all agree a nation can’t exist if it has a porous border,” Kennedy said.
The issue of an amnesty, Kennedy said, is one “that needs to be discussed after the border is closed. I don’t think any American is going to be happy with any solution until we make sure that you know, the border’s closed.”
Under President Joe Biden, illegal border crossings have reached never-before-seen levels, with as many as half a million illegal aliens coming in through the southern border with Mexico annually.
For Americans living at the border, this has meant encounters with sex slaves and drug traffickers, overwhelmed hospitals, and a more dangerous environment. Many have told reporters that they won’t leave their homes without a gun, and won’t let their children play outside unsupervised due to concerns about illegal aliens.
Many illegal immigrants have also evaded Border Patrol, meaning that Americans aren’t entirely sure who’s in the country, prompting fears of a potential terror attack or high-level cartel activity.
Very few people caught at the border are now deported, particularly following the end of Title 42 authority, an authority that allowed Border Patrol agents to turn illegal aliens away without any immigration proceedings. Rather, practically any illegal immigrant who claims to have a genuine concern for their lives can be assured that they will be released into the interior pending a court date.
Due to the unprecedented quantity of illegal aliens crossing the border, the immigration court system has also become overwhelmed, with many aliens not expected to show up to court until the 2030s.
Republicans have blamed Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the situation, saying that the duo have refused to enforce immigration laws for partisan reasons.
In any case, it’s unclear how many illegal aliens are currently residing in the United States.
Kennedy’s comments set him in contrast to other Democrats, who have generally sought to downplay the scale of illegal immigration at the border.
This isn’t Kennedy’s first time being critical of Biden’s immigration policy: on May 11, Kennedy also blasted the Biden administration’s policy of “catch and release,” a policy whereby illegal aliens are released into the interior after being apprehended by Border Patrol.
“We cannot release people, illegal aliens across the border,“ Kennedy told Fox News, vowing to make the border ”impervious” if elected.
He also rebuffed claims from within his party that securing the border is “racist” or “xenophobic.”
“It’s not racist or insensitive to say that we need to close our borders and have an orderly immigration policy,“ he said. ”I would expand legal immigration to this country that’s orderly, that makes sense for our country, but also that our borders are impervious.”
Kennedy has opined that the “humanitarian crisis” that caused the border crisis is the doing of U.S. intervention in Central America.
“We need to fix the policies that have caused this mass migration, including decades of U.S. foreign policy that have imposed austerity on those governments, neoliberal policies that have encouraged the rise of the Junta military dictatorship that has trained and supported death squads in countries across Central America,” Kennedy said.
“We are now reaping the whirlwind of years of misguided foreign policies, of warmongering foreign policy,” said the candidate, who in comments to The Epoch Times emphasized the ways that military adventurism has exacerbated inflation and caused other humanitarian crises around the globe.
Kennedy is running in part on reducing this trend of U.S. military intervention, calling for the nation to shutter many of its more than 800 bases around the globe.
