OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — In early March, President Biden reversed many of President Trump’s immigration policies. Soon after, a rush of immigrants from Central America came to the border.
While the numbers since then have dropped significantly, Congressman Don Bacon said it’s still a problem that needs to be fixed. He said this after coming back from a border visit last week.
Back in March, border patrol agents were overwhelmed with a flurry of immigrants rushing to the border.
Many of them were unaccompanied minors. CBS News reported over 5,700 children being held by Customs and Border Protection in late March.
Bacon puts the blame on President Biden.
“Joe Biden labeled, and so did many people that voted for him, Trump’s policies as inhumane. They tried to rescind a lot of those policies but what they got was more inhumanity,” said Bacon.
According to CBS News, the number of minors with parents has slowed — dropping 88% from late March to early May.
Bacon believes it is still a problem and may hurt the passing of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, better known as DACA.
“Well, we’ve just seen in the last few months, we have 50,000 children coming in and probably going to have 100,000 before we’re done here. That undermines what we’re trying to do with DACA,” said Bacon.
The House of Representatives passed a bill in March, legalizing the program that allows those that came to the country illegally as children to stay in the U.S.
But the bill is now in the Senate and Bacon believes it could be tough to get 10 Republican votes needed to pass the bill, which requires 60 votes for most legislation.
“People that are in the moderate wing of this, are going to have a harder time passing DACA,” said Bacon.
Bacon also said he was frustrated by how Biden paused construction of a southern wall.
He pointed to a picture of a wall, that now has human-sized holes in it.
“The thing that bothered me is there’s tons of supplies for filling in the wall to making and patching holes in the wall but everything is at a standstill right now with the current administration,” said Bacon.
While he points the finger at Biden for many of the issues, he later acknowledged that it’s on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
“I got to be candid with you, Congress is ultimately responsible,” said Bacon.
