An illegal immigrant seeking asylum in the United States said President Joe Biden’s election is one of the main reasons he chose to make the journey.
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz reported from near the U.S.-Mexico border in a clip that aired on Sunday and featured an interview with an unidentified “asylum seeker” crossing from Mexico to the United States illegally. The migrant told ABC News that he would not have made the trip had former President Donald Trump been in the White House.
Raddatz asked: “Would you have tried to do this when Donald Trump was president?”
“Definitely not. Definitely. We have a chance, you know. The same environment that’s been going on today wasn’t there last year,” the man responded. “We used to watch the news and I definitely wouldn’t do this.”
Raddatz followed up: “So did you come here because Joe Biden was elected president?”
“Basically,” the man said. “The main thing was the violence in my country. And the second thing, I think, was Joe Biden.”
ABC's Martha Raddatz to illegal alien who crossed the border: "Would you have tried to do this when Donald Trump was president?"
Illegal alien: "Definitely not."
Raddatz: “Did you come here because Joe Biden was elected president?"
Illegal: “Basically” pic.twitter.com/OsxvdG8xO0
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 21, 2021
Since Biden’s November win, immigrants have been flooding to the U.S.-Mexico border to cross illegally into the United States. Last week, several migrants gave similar reasons why they chose to enter the U.S. at this time to the The New York Times. As The Daily Wire reported:
Immigrants who are swarming to the U.S.-Mexico border say President Joe Biden “promised” them they would be allowed to enter the country.
“Biden promised us that everything was going to change,” Gladys Oneida Pérez Cruz, a woman who traveled to the border with her son, told The New York Times. “He hasn’t done it yet, but he is going to be a good president for migrants.”
The Times said another woman in tears at the border said, “Biden promised us!”
The number of migrants crossing into the United States has reportedly overwhelmed the U.S. Border Patrol. One facility in Donna, Texas, was at 400% capacity last week, housing 1,000 migrants in a space designed to hold just 250.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on March 13 that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been called to the border to aid the Border Patrol in housing migrants and children until they can be processed and released into the U.S.
“The federal government is responding to the arrival of record numbers of individuals, including unaccompanied children, at the southwest border. Since April 2020, the number of encounters at the border has been rising due to ongoing violence, natural disasters, food insecurity, and poverty in the Northern Triangle countries of Central America,” DHS said in a statement. “The federal government is working around the clock to move unaccompanied children from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) care and to place them with a family member or sponsor until their immigration case is adjudicated. The risks posed by the spread of COVID-19 have made this mission all the more difficult.”