WATCH: Howard Schultz Takes Sides In Debate On Southern Border

Independent presidential candidate Howard Schultz slammed Democrats and praised Republicans over the current situation on the southern border during a Thursday night town hall on Fox News.

“I can promise you that Nancy Pelosi under any circumstances will not give President Trump a victory on immigration,” Schultz said.

“Now, the issue that we have to recognize is this. President Trump is correct, and the Republican leadership is correct that we need fierce, strict levels of control on that border to keep bad people from coming in,” Schultz continued. “Illegal immigrants should not come in. I don’t want to get into a wall or anything, but I agree we should fund whatever we need to do to secure the border.”

“The Democrats are not correct,” Schultz added. “We should be funding ICE and giving them all the tools and resources they need to secure the borders and arrest the bad people. Whatever they need, give them all the resources.”

Schultz’s comments come as the crisis on the southern border has begun to rapidly deteriorate as Democratic lawmakers refuse to provide the adequate resources needed to solve the issue.

In February, more than 76,000 aliens were apprehended or deemed inadmissible at a port of entry, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Our nation is experiencing an unprecedented surge of illegal alien families arriving our border, with more than 40,000 apprehended and deemed inadmissible in February,” DHS reported. “Apprehensions of family unit aliens and Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) have surged by 338% and 54% respectively this year.”

“The truth is that the politics and policies of open borders have failed the American people. Our broken system endures, and the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at our Southwest Border leaves many minors and families at extreme risk of being exploited by traffickers, human smugglers, gangs, and other nefarious actors seeking to profit at their expense,” DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said. “Activist courts, congressional inaction, and criminals intent on breaking our laws stand in the way of confronting illegal and uncontrolled migration threatening our safety and security. What was a crisis, is now a full-fledged emergency.”

Fox News reported that new CBP data showed that “the highest number of apprehensions in 12 years was reported in February. The surge in numbers has led President Trump to threaten to close the southern border if Mexico did not stem the numbers flowing north and if Congress did not act.”

“Congress must get together and immediately eliminate the loopholes at the Border!” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “If no action, Border, or large sections of Border, will close. This is a National Emergency!”

“The system is overflowing and an example, statistically, nearly 130,000 families (have been) released into the interior of the United States just since December of last year, so the system’s in a meltdown. There’s humanitarian aspects to this that can’t continue and the border security aspects, it’s just a terrible situation for the folks that are down there,” acting ICE director Ron Vitiello said Thursday.