Members of President Joe Biden’s transition team were warned that changing the Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy would result in a crisis at the nation’s southern border, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Tuesday.
Meadows added Biden’s team was “inept in their ability” to heed the warnings and address the problem.
“Over and over again, we actually shared with the transition team that if they changed the remain in Mexico policy, if they went to more of an open border kind of approach, that they were going to have the very crisis we’re seeing,” Meadows said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
As a result, Meadows added, “we’ll have a group of people coming across our southern border equal to the populations of Wyoming and Montana. It is a crisis of epic proportions.”
The White House announced Monday that it has secured agreements with Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala to increase security along their borders. Meadows said that was one of three components that worked under former President Donald Trump.
But, he said, “one third of the equation will not solve the problem.”
“It’s putting a Band-Aid on the problem like sending an invitation to a party and locking your front door and thinking that’s going to handle it,” Meadows said. “The people still show up on your front lawn and that’s what we’re seeing is we have so many people coming across because not only has Biden encouraged illegal immigration, but he has embraced it.”
Meadows also accused the White House of not having a plan for the border situation, and slammed the choice of Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus to be commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.
Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., has called the selection disappointing, because Magnus had opposed the Trump administration’s border security policies, noted show host Dana Perino. Meadows said he agrees with the congressman.
“This individual that they’ve selected to head up the CBP is actually more known for his political rhetoric than he is for his policy shots,” Meadows said. “When you make political decisions, you get a catastrophe on our southern border and it’s what we’re seeing now.”
Biden also said Monday he’ll nominate Ur Jaddou as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles immigration paperwork and processing.
Meadows also criticized the Biden administration’s discussions about sending money to the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in hopes of fixing the roots of the migration problem.
“[The money] doesn’t make it to the people on the streets,” he said. “What we have found is over the last several decades we’ve sent hundreds of millions of hard-working Americans’ taxpayer dollars down to the Northern Triangle. It doesn’t fix the problem.”
Meadows said the situation was helped by Trump cutting off funding and saying no financial aid would come if the countries didn’t assist in curbing the issue.
“What we’re seeing is just the opposite being done,” he added.
Source: Newmax
