Dem Rep. Crockett: We Need to Make Sure People Who Come Here Are Working

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Early Start,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) said that no one can say whether the amount of border money requested by President Joe Biden is enough, but we need to make sure that when people “do come to the United States, what we need to do is we need to make sure that these people are working.”

After Crockett stated that it’s a good thing President Joe Biden tied the border money to foreign policy money to ensure we’re not “overrun” and remain a top power, host Kasie Hunt asked, “Congresswoman, do you think that there is enough money in this request for the border? A lot of Republican critics of Ukraine funding say, look, we’ve got all kinds of problems at home. Our border is in crisis. There’s only $14 billion of this $100 billion request aimed at solving that problem. Do you think that’s enough?”

Crockett responded, “I’m going to be very honest with you and tell you I don’t know what the number is, and I honestly don’t think that my Republican counterparts know what that number is either, because we’ve been talking about border issues for years, and seemingly, no one has resolved the issue. But, once again, when we talk about foreign policy, one of the things that we need to make it clear about, is that you have people that are risking their lives, people aren’t risking their lives because things are just so amazing here, they’re risking their lives because things are so bad at home. People don’t naturally want to leave their homes and want to leave their families. And so, what we need to make sure we do is, number one, make sure that we’re helping out these other foreign countries to make sure that people don’t want to leave home. We’ve got to make sure that we’ve got good trade policies going, we’ve got to make sure that we are helping those modern-day democracies not crumble in front of their eyes and make sure that people don’t want to come to the United States. And then when they do come to the United States, what we need to do is we need to make sure that these people are working. If they are going to be here, we need to help out those businesses that need the laborers and we need to make sure that we are not overburdening our cities and saying that they need to take care of them.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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