Schumer: Reversing Trump Border Policies Didn’t Cause Problem, Dems Moved and GOP Said Let ‘So-Called Crisis Fester’

On Friday’s broadcast of ABC’s “The View,” Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated that the problems on the border are not due to President Joe Biden reversing several Trump-era policies, cited Republicans who saw the Senate border bill as Democrats “moving in a tough, strong direction” on the issue, and stated that by opposing the Senate bill, Trump said, “hold it out for political advantage and let this so-called crisis fester for another year.”

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked, “Well, Senator, Biden was right last night to bring up the strong bipartisan border bill that Trump essentially killed that Sen. Lankford (R-OK) had worked on. But do you think that Democrats need to acknowledge that the immigration crisis we’re now in, which is a top issue for voters, is a result of a number of Trump-era policies that President Biden decided to reverse?”

Schumer responded, “No, I don’t think so. I think the contrast was amazing. President Biden has a real plan on immigration. I know, because we worked on it with the Senate. We put a bipartisan group, Sen. Lankford, Sen. Murphy (D-CT), Sen. Sinema (I-AZ), and they put together a really tough immigration proposal that could pass in a bipartisan way. The plan was so tough that it was supported by The Wall Street Journal editorial page, the fount of hard-right conservatism in America. It was supported by the Border Patrol union. They’ve been right-wing and pro-Trump. It was supported by the Chambers of Commerce because it was tough and strong. It stopped fentanyl — if we enacted it — from coming over our borders by using these fentanyl detection machines, it increased the number of people who would apprehend people crossing the border, and it even had a cap on any immigration if too many people came across the border. So, it was tough and strong. A lot of Republicans liked it at the beginning. When they were shown it, they said, I’m amazed, the Democrats are really moving in a tough, strong direction on [the] border. And then, Donald Trump, their leader, said, I don’t want them to do anything on the border, I want it to stay a crisis for a whole year so I can win the election.”