Stephen Miller: Biden's Immigration Plan Would "Erase America's Nationhood"

Maria Bartiromo interviewed former Trump administration senior adviser Stephen Miller Sunday on FOX News Channel’s "Sunday Morning Futures" about how the Biden administration is changing policy:

Stephen Miller - talking about Biden Admin reopening up the border to illegal immigrants

STEPHEN MILLER: The reason why I have studied immigration so closely is that it's so fundamental to what it is to be a nation, the right of the people living in a country to decide who enters that country, on what conditions, for how long, and how to establish national boundaries and borders. That's fundamental to what it means to be a country.

The legislation put forward by President Biden and congressional Democrats would fundamentally erase the very essence of America's nationhood.

For the first time, I believe in human history, this legislation proposes sending applications to previously deported illegal immigrants and giving them the chance to reenter the country on a rapid path to citizenship. This is unheard of.

These are the people that ICE officers, at great time and expense, found, large numbers of them with criminal records, returned to their home countries at taxpayer expense. And now we're going to have the secretary of state and homeland security mailing applications for readmission and amnesty to previously deported illegal immigrants?

This is madness. Now, this is on top of the fact that the current administration has already dismantled border security, canceling President Trump's historic agreements with Mexico and with the Northern Triangle countries, restoring catch and release, and, additionally, gutting interior enforcement, issuing a memo preventing ICE from removing the vast majority of criminal illegal immigrants that it encounters.

And the last thing I will say about that memo is that they have engaged in a fraudulent representation to the court in the Texas litigation, because they are claiming this is a resources issue.

I know for a fact that ICE has the resources to remove these public safety threats. This is a policy choice disguised falsely to the court and to the country as a resource issue. That is a lie. And it's a lie that threatens public safety.

And I know that the ICE, Border Patrol men and women are now being told that they have to get authority to make any moves. They need authority from above before detaining anyone.

I spoke with Mark Morgan, the head -- the former head of Customs and Border Patrol, and he told me that we are averaging 3,500 apprehensions every day. So, you're talking -- and then another 500 turned back. So, you're talking about 4,000 people coming to our border areas every day.

Let's take a look at this map, because we have a map showing all of -- the most porous areas pretty much. And as we zero in on this map, we see Texas, as well as California and the Rio Grande area. This is the area, Rio Grande, that is -- the Rio Grande River -- that is most vulnerable.

I actually took the show to El Paso and witnessed people coming across then.

I wanted to mention this, because this is one of those pocketbook issues where it impacts people's families and their lives. You can talk about it as a headline immigration bill, but when you zero in on what this means, with 4,000 illegals coming in every day, you really get a sense of how this impacts the American families.

Walk us through it. Tell us what's most important for our viewers to understand.

MILLER: Yes, well, I will give you a -- give you a simple example.

So, right now, under the current administration, they are failing to abide by the CDC guidance, and they are processing for entry and release 100 percent of illegal immigrants under the age of 18. In other words, any illegal aliens 17 or younger who is smuggled to the border or trafficked to the border is being processed for admission through Health and Human Services and then resettlement in the country.

So, ask yourself, who is going to pay for the education? What does it mean -- when classrooms, God willing, reopen, what does it mean for classroom size? What does it mean for health care?

Then you add on top of that the families that are being released. Who's paying for the medical bills? Who's paying for the health care costs?

You pay with your local property taxes in many cases, and your sales tax, and many other forms of local tax on your rent, on everything that you do in your life. And one way or another, you're paying for those local services.

So, when people show up illegally, having never lived here a day in their lives, that's coming out of your pocketbook. And it's a public safety issue. As I mentioned, ICE is now disallowed from removing the vast majority of illegal immigrants with criminal records.

So, whether you're in Louisiana, or whether you're in Arkansas, whether you're in Montana, whether in New York state, illegal immigrants are being re-released into the community who have already committed crimes, and we know there's a high recidivism rate. That's going to cost lives. That's a public safety calamity in real time happening now. This is not theoretical.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/02/21/stephen_miller_bidens_immigration_plan_would_erase_americas_nationhood.html