Pete King to Newsmax TV: Biden Deflecting on Illegal Immigrant Crisis

Americans will not be seeing President Joe Biden at the southern border, talking to folks on the ground about the influx of illegal immigrants, because it would be an admission his administration's policies created a "crisis" there, former Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., told Newsmax TV.

"First of all, they are only now acknowledging there's even a problem down there – nevermind a full-blown crisis," King told "John Bachman Now" on Tuesday. "I think he feels that by going there, he's going to be legitimizing the fact that there is a crisis. He doesn't want to admit that; he doesn't want to draw attention to that."

Instead, King told host John Bachman, Biden prefers to be "flying around the country and talking about all the money he's going be giving to people."

"That'll take our eyes and ears away from what's happening at the border," King said. He added that Biden "certainly" should take a first-hand look at the crisis his open borders calls are causing.

"As commander in chief, your main obligation to secure the nation's security and to make sure we maintain our territorial integrity," he said. "And by ignoring this, I understand what he's doing. He hasn't spoken a word on this at all, and [White House press secretary] Jen Psaki at the news conferences basically tries to glide over it. This is a crisis, a real crisis."

Even Democrats, such as Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, are "sounding the alarm bell about how damaging this is to the border communities," King added.

"This is a totally self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration," he said. "I mean, you could have surges in any administration and actions taken to stop it. But in this case, they actually encouraged the surge. They actually, basically, said, 'We're going to open borders,' and now they're trying to back away from the reality."

Ultimately, King said, Biden's failures highlight the gains made by former President Donald Trump at the border, and his administration is being shown to have made the proper moves.

"The fact is the Trump administration – and they had trouble along the way getting started, but they stayed with it," King said. "They had a very secure program in place as of President Trump's final year in office. This was under control, and it was far, far better than what has happened during the Biden administration."

King invoked the infamous 1986 congressional legislation that traded amnesty for illegals for a "guarantee of security" that never came.

"We have to show illegal immigration be brought down to a certain level," King said. "We have to show that the security is going be at the border; otherwise, if you deliver amnesty now in return for security later on, you'll never get the security. That was actually done back in 1986.

"They really loosened the immigration requirements on the promise and the guarantee that there will be border security, but we never really got the border security. If we're going to get any type of immigration legislation, there has to be strict border security, and the Democrats, the progressive wing, will not allow them to sign on to that."

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