Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, the former congresswoman from Hawaii, blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday for the crisis on the U.S. southern border.
In a tweet tagging both Biden and Harris, Gabbard wrote, “the humanitarian and national security crisis on the southern border is the direct result of your open-border policy.”
“As I said in my 2020 presidential campaign, we can’t have a secure nation if we don’t secure our borders,” Gabbard continued.
.@JoeBiden @KamalaHarris, the humanitarian and national security crisis on the southern border is the direct result of your open-border policy. As I said in my 2020 presidential campaign, we can’t have a secure nation if we don't secure our borders.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) September 23, 2021
Gabbard’s tweet comes as Del Rio, Texas, has been flooded with over ten thousand illegal aliens, mostly from Haiti, in recent days, and the Biden administration has been widely criticized for their slow response.
Once the administration did respond, some of the Haitian illegal aliens allegedly became violent, attacking U.S. pilots, biting federal immigration agents and overtaking a bus after they learned that they were being removed for violating U.S. federal immigration laws.
However, reports that Biden is actually conducting “widespread expulsions” have been called into question after subsequent reports said that thousands of Haitian migrants that illegally entered the country were let into the U.S. and given notices to appear or notices to return to an immigration office to have their cases processed.
“Haitians have been freed on a ‘very, very large scale’ in recent days, according to one U.S. official who put the figure in the thousands,” The Associated Press reported. “The official, who has direct knowledge of operations, was not authorized to discuss the matter Tuesday and spoke on condition of anonymity.”
The report noted that the latest development from Democrat President Joe Biden’s border crisis is “undercutting the Biden administration’s public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion.”
The report said that many have been released into the U.S. with notices to appear at an immigration office within the next two months.
“A second U.S. official, also with direct knowledge and speaking on the condition of anonymity, said large numbers of Haitians were being processed under immigration laws and not being placed on expulsion flights to Haiti that started Sunday,” the AP’s report said, later adding, “The releases in the U.S. were occurring despite the signaling of a massive effort to expel Haitians on flights to Haiti under pandemic-related authority that denies migrants an opportunity to seek asylum.”
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed on Monday that the U.S. Border was not open, saying, “If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life.”
Yet, the AP noted that “accounts of wide-scale releases – some observed at the Del Rio bus station by Associated Press journalists” were “at odds with statements a day earlier” from Mayorkas, who had “traveled to Del Rio to promise swift action.”
Former acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2019 that federal law enforcement officials have had a problem with migrants not showing up after they received notices to appear.
Rodney Scott, the widely praised head of U.S. Border Patrol that Biden forced out earlier this year, warned in a letter to Senate leaders that Biden’s disastrous border policies are destroying America’s borders, and that bad actors are exploiting the situation.
“The Biden administration’s team at DHS is laser-focused on expediting the flow of migrants into the U.S. and downplaying the significant vulnerability this creates for terrorists, narcotics smugglers, human traffickers, and even hostile nations to gain access to our homeland,” Scott wrote. “In my professional assessment, the U.S. Border Patrol is rapidly losing the situational awareness required to know who and what is entering our Homeland.”
Scott then issued a dire warning about who is likely exploiting the Biden administration’s weakness on the southern border.
“Low level, unsophisticated and uneducated smugglers are illegally crossing the border and increasingly evading apprehension daily,” Scott warned. “To think that well-resourced terrorist networks, criminal organizations, and hostile nations are not doing the same is naive.”