On Saturday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appeared on Fox News where he discussed his recent trip to the southern border with other GOP governors to announce initiatives to combat the ongoing border crisis.
As I covered this week, nine Republican governors joined Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at a news conference in Mission, Texas to unveil a ten-point plan to alleviate the border crisis amidst the Biden administration’s open border policies. Among these initiatives are plans to end “catch and release” policies and resume the deportations of all criminals.
At the start of the segment, Kemp noted that his visit to the border this week was his third trip down to the border. He mentioned that conditions have gotten worse since his last visit, especially since the Biden administration suspended the construction of the border wall and reduced the number of troops securing the border.
“When you’re dealing with crime, drugs, human trafficking every single day – in the state of Georgia and other states around the country – every state’s a border state now,” Kemp said in the segment. “These illegal immigrants that are coming across, and really the way it was described to me, it’s gone from an illegal immigration problem to a mass migration crisis. They’re going everywhere. And we just don’t know where they are. But we know they’re in the country. And it’s because of the policies of the Biden administration.”
Kemp noted that reverting back to Trump-era border policies, including securing the border wall, would make a big difference to decrease illegal immigration.
“It’s amazing that nobody in the Biden administration will go down there and simply talk to these folks about how to fix this problem,” Kemp added, pointing out that Vice President Harris, the “border czar,” is not visiting the border amid the humanitarian crisis occurring there.
“This administration’s just turning a blind eye to that. They’re pushing other policies, unfortunately, to try to pivot from the crisis at the border and the disaster we saw in the pullout in Afghanistan. It’s really up to the governors now to keep this at the forefront and make sure the American people and the people of our state realize this,” Kemp said in the segment.
“The benefit of the wall is it sends people to choke points so you can slow the process down. When you slow the process down, that hits the drug cartels in the pocketbook and in the wallet,” Kemp continued. “It’s not rocket science that we’re dealing with.”
Kemp, along with several other Republican governors, sent National Guard troops to the southern border to help the Border Patrol. Despite this, Kemp mentioned that there are still not enough people at the border to deal with the crisis.
“If they [Border Patrol] didn’t have them, [National Guard troops] it would be a disaster down there,” Kemp said to wrap up the segment. “Everybody’s being overworked. There’s not enough people. And the administration is decreasing the personnel level.”