Nikki Haley asks a good question about the southern border

Alice Keeney

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley was the first to tour the southern border to see the Biden border crisis up close and personal on Monday. While there she asked a question that is on everyone’s mind. ‘How do the American people have any confidence in a president who refuses to see a border problem and a secretary who refuses to see it as a crisis?’

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The answer is that we don’t. After three years of neglect and lies, there is no reason to believe that Joe Biden or DHS Secretary Mayorkas will do anything to secure the border and protect the sovereignty of the United States. She puts the sole blame on Biden, as she should because Mayorkas and others are carrying out his policies. Haley said it is up to Biden to fire Mayorkas and replace him with someone that can do the job. The problem with that is that it assumes Biden wants a secure border. What is clear is that Biden doesn’t care. The Biden border crisis is intentional.

Good for Haley for making the effort to go to the southern border. She accepted Rep. Tony Gonzales’ (R-TX) offer to join him on a tour. His district includes the greater San Antonio area. He has issued an open invitation to all presidential candidates to tour the region. Haley is the first to take him up on his offer. Theirs was a five-stop trip along the border Monday. Trump has been to the southern border but not since he announced his candidacy for the 2024 election GOP primary.

Haley’s final stop was in Eagle Pass, Texas.

‘We have one president, and his job is to keep Americans safe,’ Haley told DailyMail.com at the final stop of her trip in Eagle Pass, Texas. ‘And all we know is that he’s refusing to look at the border situation because he hopes it goes away.’

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Eagle Pass is a familiar town for regular viewers of Fox News Channel. Reporter Bill Melugin does an excellent job covering the border, frequently from that location. He was given an exclusive interview with Haley. Asked about what she would suggest for securing the border, she offered her plan which includes some common sense measures.

Mayorkas refuses to admit that the southern border is porous and that it presents a crisis. He did so as recently as Sunday’s interview that aired on 60 Minutes. Even that show’s journalist was surprised that Mayorkas can’t say the word ‘crisis’ about the humanitarian and national security chaos along the border. One focus of her tour was on the problems faced by border communities because of the flood of illegal aliens regularly crossing the border.

‘So now he’s got Mayorkas – he’s been given the trouble of dealing with this, and he’s refused to call it a crisis. So how do the American people have any confidence in a president who refuses to see a border problem and a secretary who refuses to see it as a crisis?’ Haley added.

Haley made a few stops in Texas, including Del Rio and Eagle Pass, where she met with Border Patrol agents, National Guard soldiers, ranchers, and residents who live in fear daily.

She also went to a shoe factory on the U.S. side of the border where many legal immigrants work.

Now, she says it’s time for Biden to see the ‘real’ border towns after finally making his first trip to the border, but not surveying some of the realities the communities are facing from the crisis.

‘You look at these families, the number one thing that they said is, ‘People need to not expect us just to live like this,’ Haley said.

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She asked when Biden would come to the border since most people have given up on Kamala’s performance as border czar. I don’t think she should hold her breath waiting for Biden to tour the border. He made a brief trip to the El Paso area, as Kamala does when she pretends to put focus on the border crisis, but that was his first trip ever to the border. Kamala prefers to say she is focusing on the root causes of mass illegal immigration. All she has done in that area, though, is to show up in Central American countries and present their leaders (sometimes corrupt leaders) with checks, courtesy of American taxpayers. She offers no real solutions to the porous border.

Haley is making illegal immigration and the open border a top campaign issue, as Trump did in 2016. She’s smart to do so. We saw in the midterm election cycle that illegal immigration and securing the southern border are top issues for voters, especially voters in border states. Biden’s border crisis has made all states border states.

Biden doesn’t deserve to be president, she said, as she pointed to his failure to secure the border.

“What I’d say to President Biden is, shame on you. Shame on you because you are putting every single American at risk. This is a national security threat… this is your job, your job is to protect the American people. You’re not doing it, you don’t deserve to be president,” Haley said, adding that what she’s witnessed has been a “dereliction of duty.”

“I don’t know why the Democrats are allowing him to run,” she continued. “We can’t allow this to continue to happen. Biden thinks if he doesn’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist. But for the people now in Hondo, Texas, for the people here now in Del Rio, it does exist every day. And now it is in every state in the country.”

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Haley would make a good vice-presidential candidate or a good choice for a cabinet position. Her perspective is that of a daughter of immigrant parents, who came here legally and pursued the American Dream. She has national security experience as the Ambassador to the United Nations and she has executive experience as a former governor. As long as she is in the primary race, she can keep illegal immigration as a top issue.

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