Dem Rep. Correa: Immigration ‘Not About a Number at the Border’ — It’s About Fixing ‘Economies Around the World’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” Ranking Member of the Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) commented on the number of encounters on the southern border by stating that “it’s not about a number at the border. It’s about trying to figure out how we kickstart these economies around the world and how to get people to stay home, to be able to earn a living and this is what we’ve been ignoring.”

Host Blake Burman asked, “I want to show you the numbers of apprehensions along the southern border all across the U.S. Before the expiration of Title 42, you can see there…it was basically at about 10,000 a day. The last couple of days that’s dropped in half to 5,000. 5,000, Congressman, is still a really big number when you’re talking about day after day after day, week after week, month after month. Is that what success looks like in your eyes?”

Correa answered, “Well, let’s pull back and look at the big picture here. The big picture is this is the biggest movement of refugees since World War II. … Right now, post-COVID world economies are shattered around the world. So, you expect people to try to come to the United States. And by the way, the U.S. is the only economy really hitting on all its cylinders. Unemployment is really low, looking at inflation. So, people are voting with their feet to move to come to the U.S. At the same time, look at your numbers, what’s going on at the border. Those numbers are going down. But Mexico also is holding a lot of those refugees, trying to take care of them. Guatemala is trying to do the same thing. Colombia has almost 2.5 million Venezuelan refugees. This is a worldwide phenomenon. The Canadians are struggling to figure it out. So, it’s not about a number at the border. It’s about trying to figure out how we kickstart these economies around the world and how to get people to stay home, to be able to earn a living and this is what we’ve been ignoring.”

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