Hakeem Jeffries begrudgingly gives Trump credit for securing border

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries gave President Donald Trump credit on Wednesday for securing the southern border after repeated questioning from CNN host Pamela Brown.

Trump asserted during a Tuesday cabinet meeting that Border Patrol agents released a grand total of zero migrants into the interior of the United States for six straight months. Brown cited that statistic on “The Situation Room” and noted that apprehensions under Trump were lower than they were during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

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“Are you willing to give President Trump any credit for that?” Brown asked.

“[W]e believe in a safe, a strong and a secure border. And that’s important. And we’ll continue to stand behind that. At the same period of time, we acknowledge, of course, we have a broken immigration system,” Jeffries said. “It needs to be fixed, but it should be fixed in a comprehensive and in a bipartisan way. The American people strongly disagree with the approach that Donald Trump has taken in terms of interior enforcement and immigration. Because Republicans promised that they were going to go after violent felons. We support that.”

“They’re not going after violent felons. They’re breaking up families, law abiding immigrant families, in some cases actually deporting citizen children of the United States of America,” he added. “That’s completely and totally unacceptable. And the American people know it, which is why in the most recent Gallup poll, Donald Trump’s approval rating on immigration was underwater by 25 points.”

Brown said Jeffries was correct about polling on the Trump administration’s methods, but asked if he was able to give the president credit for the results.

“But in terms of securing the border, can you give President Trump any credit for securing the border?” she asked. “Because as you know, that was a big issue under the Biden administration when you had record border crossings. And those border crossings have gone down dramatically. Can you give him credit for that?”

“The border is secure. That’s a good thing. It’s happened on his watch. He wants to claim credit for it. Of course, he’ll get credit for that,” Jeffries said. “In terms of making sure that we actually deal with the issues that matter, including on immigration or beyond, there’s a lot that is left to be desired.”

There were around 11 million border encounters from February 2021 until December 2024 under Biden, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. Moreover, a December 2024 analysis by The New York Times found that Biden oversaw the greatest net migration in U.S. history and that a majority of U.S.-bound migration was unlawful.

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