A California Republican on Sunday chided the Biden administration over its refusal to confront the border crisis head-on and told them to “get your butts out there and see it for yourselves.”
During an appearance Sunday on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” U.S. Rep. Young Kim said burying the administration’s collective heads in the sand only allows the crisis to grow.
“I have gone down to the border in Texas, the southern border. I also went down to the California-Mexico border. What I have seen is definitely the security crisis, humanitarian crisis. We have a crisis at the border, yet this Biden administration refuses to see it for what it is,” Kim said.
She said those who make policy should see with their own eyes the reality of the border.
“I urge the Biden administration and also Vice President Kamala Harris to get down to the border to see for themselves, and maybe they (will) change their mind,” Kim said.
She said the flow of illegal immigrants leaves the border defenseless.
“Drug cartels are the only ones that are benefiting from this border crisis,” Kim said. “It is hurting Americans. It is undermining legal immigration. And it is draining the resources from the Border Patrol agents, CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) agents when they should be patrolling the borders.”
“Right now all of the illegal activities are slipping through because our border patrol agents are now serving the role of caretakers. That is something that the Biden administration refuses to see.”
Kim did not mince words about the need for administration leaders to see what is going on, as she did during her trip to the border last week with a bipartisan delegation.
“I really encourage them to get down there, get your butts out there and see it for yourselves what I’m seeing,” she said on “Fox & Friends.”
“It is breaking my heart. I see so many mothers with young children because they are getting a mixed signal that when you come across the border illegally, one way or another you will be taken care of. Wrong, wrong.”
She said a return to former President Donald Trump’s policies is what the nation needs.
“We need to reinstate the policies that have worked during the previous administration and really, I really encourage them to get down there and let’s fix the problem,” she said.
In a column for Fox News, Kim wrote that “while we need to come together to address the root causes of mass migration, recent policy changes made by the Biden administration are contributing to this crisis and hurting Americans.”
“President Biden said in his joint address to Congress that his policies as vice president ‘helped keep people in their own countries instead of being forced to leave’ but ‘the last administration shut it down,'” she wrote.
“However, the Biden administration’s recent decisions to roll back policies from the last administration without thoughtful policy replacements are encouraging the opposite. The administration’s lack of a plan is exacerbating the border crisis, straining resources everywhere from the border to communities I represent in California’s 39th District.”
Kim noted that as an immigrant from South Korea, she knows immigration transforms lives and makes the nation stronger. However, she wrote, “The Biden administration’s border policies are undermining the legal immigrants who have waited their turn in line for years.”
She also said that success isn’t simply passing unaccompanied minors from one agency to the next.
“Additionally, while recently we’ve seen the Biden administration post pictures of CBP facilities being less full, this just means that the migrants are likely now in HHS (Health and Human Services) facilities. This is no indication that any progress has been made to solve the problem of the surge of migrants coming to our country,” Kim wrote for Fox News.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.