Wednesday on ABC’s “The View,” the co-hosts argued with guest co-host and former Trump spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham over the issue of immigration.
Grisham said, “I come from a border state, so I can speak to it pretty well. Arizona, 20 years I lived there, and I’ve seen what open border policies can do to the country and to the people who are trying to get into this country.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “What do you mean by open borders?”
Grisham said, “People who are —well, like this. if they lift this, people are going to go from 7,000 people getting into the country every day to 18,000.”
Hostin said, “You say you’ve seen open border policies. What do you mean by that?”
Grisham said, “I mean by letting people just come in and not enforcing and sending them back.”
She added, “I’ve seen the human trafficking that is done. There are people called coyotes. They bring women and children across the border and leave them in the desert and do unspeakable things to them, and so to go from 7,000 to 18,000 people daily crossing into our border illegally, I don’t know how we would pay for it. I don’t know where we would put them, and it puts a lot of those people in danger.”
Hostin said, “There are laws in place, everyone. OK. Under U.S. law, a refugee is a person who is unable to or unwilling to return to his home country because of various reasons. In this country, once you enter the country, you have a right, a legal right because of our Constitution, because of the strength of our laws to ask for asylum.”
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked, “Does it matter how they come in?”
Hostin said, “No, it does not. No, it does not. When you say they’re coming in illegally, I take umbrage to that, especially because 14,000 Haitians were expelled under the Biden administration. Especially because 76,000 Afghans were welcomed, which they should have been. And because this administration is willing to take over 100,000 Ukrainians.”
Grisham said, “Which I agree with.”
Hostin said, “So it seems to me that the law is okay for some people, but not okay for people that look like me. I don’t like that.”
Grisham said, “I don’t agree with that.”
Co-host Joy Behar asked, ‘Why is it okay for 100,000 Ukrainians to come in and not these other people running from oppression and death?”
Grisham added, “There are bad people who are also coming in this country. China, knowing our borders are opening, will now have fentanyl come across the borders like crazy and 100,000 people a day — ”
Behar said, “Why does this sound like Fox News?”
Hostin said, “It does.”
Grisham said, “Because I’m a Republican, and I’m sorry about that.”
Behar shot back, “Are you spewing like talking points here? What are your numbers?”
Grisham said, “I lived in Arizona. I saw these things.”
Behar said, “How much could you see? You’re one person.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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