Dem rep admits party did ‘poor job’ securing border

Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington admitted Thursday that the Biden administration failed to secure the border and that changes to asylum laws were needed.

The Supreme Court temporarily halted the Trump administration’s efforts to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) early Saturday, saying those who were slated for deportation had a right to challenge their removal. Smith claimed during an interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation the big problem was a failure to “compromise” in Congress.

WATCH:

“[W]e did a poor job of securing the border, particularly on the asylum laws. I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Mr. Homan said there, but certainly, the asylum laws were wide open, and people took advantage of that. And President Biden didn’t do enough to secure the border,” Smith told Cuomo. “On the larger question of what Congress wants to do, the problem is we can’t get a compromise, tough on the border, but also, we’ve got Donald Trump blocking refugees, taking away Temporary Protect[ed] Status, and also a number of us believe that there are a lot of people in this country, undocumented who should be allowed to stay.”

“They have been a vital part of our economy. They are vital parts of our community. They are husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, working, paying taxes,” Smith continued. “We have depended upon their labor for decades, and to rip those families apart and send them back to countries that, in many cases, they don’t even know, we believe, would be wrong. So, Democrats want pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, and then a lot of us are wide open to talking about toughening the asylum laws and getting to greater security. But that inability to compromise on that issue is the biggest thing that has blocked Congress acting.”

The Border Patrol encountered millions of illegal immigrants during the Biden administration, according to figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Upon taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump issued several executive orders to address illegal immigration, including designating Mexican drug cartels, TdA and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations and invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up the deportation of gang members on March 15.

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