Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) expressed exasperation during an interview over the weekend about the continually worsening conditions on the U.S. southern border, saying that U.S. lawmakers were getting closer to passing new laws to stop a significant chunk of the illegal immigration.
Manchin made the remarks during a Sunday interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” while discussing negotiations between the Biden administration and the U.S. Senate.
“They understand that the border is broken, that glass ceiling has been broken,” he said. “And we have got to stop this dangerous immigration that we have coming to our country from all over the world, Jake, things that we have never seen, numbers that we have never seen like this.”
“The whole world is in a flux, and they’re taking advantage of a system that truly is broken,” he continued. “And this is not immigration reform. They’re basically working diligently on just securing the border. It must be done. It must be shut down.”
Manchin said that the threshold needed to be raised considerably “as far as on the definition of asylum.”
“You just can’t come and say: Someone threatened me. I have got to come into your country,” he continued. “You have to show me proof, have proof that this type of threat to you and your family is basically untenable, and you cannot live in those conditions. That’s going to change things. Even under the lower bar right now, Jake, when everything has been adjudicated — let’s say there’s 100 people adjudicated — less than 15 qualify with the lower definition of just saying: Someone threatened me. Can you imagine if we raise it to a more credible, higher level, that it will really be more difficult and do the job that the asylum is supposed to do and what it’s done in the past? That’s what we’re working towards.”
“And, basically, thousands and thousands of people have been dispersed throughout the country. It’ll give us time to basically make sure we can adjudicate them faster, and those who came for the wrong reason or just came in for — basically because of the relaxed rules that we had, we can be more stringent and enforce that, too,” he continued. “But you have to stop the influx of people coming and the incentive for people coming from all over the world to this country. It’s very, very dangerous, very dangerous. And I think you have seen the numbers and the countries they’re coming from. I have seen them. I’m very much concerned. It has to stop now.”
“We are sold out,” he later added. “We are over capacity right now, and we have to control this.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
WATCH: