by Jennie Taer
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 Republican candidate Nikki Haley visited the U.S.-Mexico border Monday, delivering her proposal to solving the illegal immigration crisis.
Haley proposed a mandatory E-Verify program for employers to ensure they’re not hiring illegal immigrants, firing 87,000 IRS agents to hire “at least” 25,000 Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, ending taxpayer funding of illegal immigrants and defunding sanctuary cities during a press conference with Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales in Eagle Pass, Texas. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has documented a record surge in illegal immigration at the southern border.
“And then the one thing that could make the biggest difference, stop catch and release and go to catch and deport. When you start deporting illegal immigrants, they will stop coming,” Haley said.
Federal authorities recorded more than 2.3 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2022 and more than 1 million between October 2022 and February 2023.
Haley also said she’d bring back “Remain in Mexico” to force illegal immigrants to await their court dates south of the border and keep Title 42, the Trump-era expulsion order used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
“Why are we doing this? Stop the insanity because we’re doing this to ourselves. And what I will say is this is not a Republican or Democrat issue, this is a national security issue,” Haley said.
Haley also placed the blame on President Joe Biden for the border surge.
“First of all, Biden needs to open his mouth and call this a crisis, he needs to let his cabinet agencies say that it’s a crisis and they need to start dealing with it and Congress needs to get into a room to fix it,” Haley said, adding that both Republicans and Democrats need to come to the table to fix the issue.
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Jennie Taer is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Image “Nikki Haley at the Southern Border” by Nikki Haley.