Senator Ted Cruz of Texas didn’t mince words when he criticized White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for claiming illegal immigration decreased 90% under President Joe Biden.
During Monday’s press briefing, Jean-Pierre made the claim that illegal immigration declined by 90% under the Biden administration, despite data from United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) showing 1.2 million illegal immigrants encountered during fiscal year 2023, 2.37 million in fiscal year 2022 and 1.7 million in fiscal year 2021.
In response, Cruz told Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, “Joe Biden came in. He opened up the border and within days of his being sworn in the numbers skyrocketed. We have today, we went from the lowest rate of illegal immigration to the highest rate in history.”
When pressed by Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy, Jean-Pierre claimed she was speaking to the parolee program, which “has gone down by more than 90%.” However, her attempt to divert the conversation away from the reality of the situation only enraged Cruz further.
“She says that all the time,” Cruz said about Jean-Pierre’s claim. “She’s also stood at the podium and said ‘people are not just walking across the border.’ You’re playing next to me videos of people swimming across the river, walking across the border. You’re playing that right now. She just flat-out lies.”
It’s clear that President Biden’s lax and disastrous immigration policies have only served to increase illegal immigration, which is a stark contrast to the success achieved under the Trump administration. In fiscal year 2020, the last full year of the Trump administration, CBP encountered 458,088 illegal migrants, the lowest rate in 45 years.
The Biden administration’s failure to address the border crisis has led to an influx of illegal immigrants, with more than 600,000 migrants evading CBP in fiscal year 2022. This has caused a surge of violence, crime and human trafficking along the border, which has only been exacerbated by the planned May 11 end to the use of Title 42, a policy used during the Trump administration to quickly expel illegal immigrants.
It’s time for the Biden administration to take action and put an end to the crisis. The administration must put in place more stringent measures to protect the border and address the humanitarian crisis, while also ensuring that those crossing the border are doing so legally. Anything less than that is unacceptable.
