In an effort to entice his own party to take the bipartisan border deal that gives them more than they could have ever hoped for, Republican Senator James Lankford reminded his party’s base that border crossings were also high under Trump due to gaps and loopholes in the law, which the bipartisan border deal addresses.
“I would remind folks that during the Trump administration we also had days of more than 4,000 people that were illegally crossing the border in 2019 and they were struggling because there were gaps and loopholes in the law,” Lankford (R-OK) said on Newsmax.
Watch:
Sen. Lankford on Newsmax: “I would remind folks that during the Trump administration we also had days of more than 4,000 people that were illegally crossing the border in 2019 and they were struggling because there were gaps and loopholes in the law.” pic.twitter.com/U1tKcKSVwS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2024
Lankford has been dropping a few uncomfortable truth bombs for his party in the last few days, having corrected Speaker Mike Johnson claims that Republicans were cut out of the negotiations on the border bill, saying that actually, Johnson was invited, but he refused.
Lankford is not exactly a moderate, either, although he’s being called a “RINO” by the base for championing the concept of actually doing the work legislators are paid to do.
Way back in 2010, just a week after he had been elected to the U.S. House, he had to testify in a deposition due to sexual abuse allegations lobbed against other people during his time as as the director of youth programming at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center.
While he himself was not accused of any wrongdoing, including not being accused of being aware of the abuse, he did testify that he believed a 13-year-old could consent to sex, in a state in which the age of consent was 16. So yeah, he is hardly a raging moderate.
Anyway, why is Lankford having to remind his own party to take what they asked for when it’s being given?
Because of that guy who is facing 91 felony counts. Yes, former President Donald Trump has ordered House Republicans that they are not to allow a border bill to be passed no matter how good it is. You see, it’s not about solving the border crisis; it’s about a campaign issue that operates on base fear, which is Trump’s easiest way to manipulate the populace into not looking at what he’s been up to for the last several years (for example, he was found liable for rape and fraud recently.)
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson (who thinks he is Moses?) has had a hard time trying to justify his obstruction of the huge compromise being made by the Democrats and President Biden’s administration to agree on the bipartisan national security bill.
The bill is historic in its accomplishments and “the most comprehensive border security bill in more than 40 years,” as Jason Easley explained in The Daily, noting that Republicans aren’t likely to ever get a better deal from Democrats:
“The bill that was negotiated by the White House, Senate Democrats, and Senate Republicans is historic because it addresses concerns that both Democrats and Republicans have had for decades. One of the biggest magnets that draws migrants to the Southern border is that the broken immigration system takes so long to process asylum seekers that it incentivizes coming to the United States illegally for a better life. It can take 5 to 7 years for asylum seekers to be processed. This is due to a lack of staff, technology, and an outdated system. The bipartisan legislation deals with this issue.
The legislation is also the most comprehensive border security bill in more than 40 years. Republicans aren’t going to get a better deal from Democrats maybe ever. It checks off almost everything that Republicans have wanted in terms of securing the border.”
Just last week, Trump claimed again – even after PolitiFact deemed this “mostly false” way back in 2021, “When I was President, we had the most secure Border in History (sic),” but reality begs to differ because unfortunately, the border is not easily solved in a humane way that upholds U.S. values of freedom and liberty.
PolitiFact pointed out, “Trump ignores that the surge started in the spring of 2020 when he was still in office.”
Pew Research found that in spite of all of the rhetoric and policy changes, Trump’s arrest numbers for unauthorized migrants was lower than President Obama’s first term:
While CBP enforces immigration laws at the border, ICE is tasked with apprehending unauthorized immigrants in the interior of the country. The number of interior arrests made by ICE (known as “administrative arrests”) rose 30% in fiscal 2017 after Trump signed an executive order giving the agency broader authority to detain unauthorized immigrants, including those without criminal records. They went up again in fiscal 2018 but decreased in fiscal 2019 and remain far lower than during President Barack Obama’s first term in office.
Trump’s numbers did benefit from the eventual closure of the border due to the pandemic, but it’s also true that there have also been shifts in the reasons people seek asylum here that have nothing to do with U.S. policy.
Poor James Lankford, he tried to do his job and the MAGA wing of his party just won’t have it.
MAGA Republicans (Trump’s puppets) are insisting that the border is an imminent national security threat so frightening that all humanity must be tossed aside, but… it must not be dealt with until the election is over.
We’ve seen this play before from Trump. His caravan fear-mongering actually incited the mass murder of Jewish people in their Synagogue. To fear-monger to this degree and then refuse to take the win handed to you by the other party is a grotesque admission of callous political manipulation for the benefit of One.
A Special Message From PoliticusUSA
If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here.
We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value.
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
