In a recent appearance on CNN’s “AC360,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) asserted that President Joe Biden had put in place one of the most stringent border regulatory systems in recent history. However, he noted that the situation had changed dramatically, with 10,000 individuals now arriving daily, leading to a larger and more urgent crisis.
Host Anderson Cooper asked, “Do you accept that President Biden and his team waited too long, because there is an argument that he waited too long to address the gravity of this crisis? Today’s trip was only the second time he’s actually visited the southern border. He kind of pawned it off on Kamala Harris a while back. This border deal probably could have gotten done a lot sooner.”
Murphy answered, “Well, President Biden, in his first week or so in office, introduced an immigration and border reform bill. And though it didn’t get any coverage in the press, he implemented one of the toughest new regulatory regimes at the border in decades, a regime that was opposed, by, frankly, many progressive immigration groups. So, it’s just actually not true when people say, well, President Biden didn’t do anything on the border until this summer, he actually has. What changed is that there are now 10,000 people showing up on a daily basis. And so, the crisis is bigger, it’s more immediate. And what also changed is that, finally, Republicans, we thought, were willing to come to the table and get something done, something they were not willing to do for the first three years of President Biden’s term in office.”
