Fmr. Obama Official: Supporting Senate Bill Part of Recent ‘Shift’ Away from Left on Border Biden Has Made

On Friday’s broadcast of “NewsNation Now,” John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE Director during the Obama administration, said that President Joe Biden has made a “shift” on the border “of late, including by adopting and endorsing the Senate bill, I think they’ve made a pivot away from some of the immigration advocate groups and progressives.”

While discussing President Joe Biden referring to the suspect in the Laken Riley case as an “illegal” during the State of the Union, Sandweg stated, “I think this kind of reflects…a larger shift the White House — and a calculated gamble they’ve made of late, including by adopting and endorsing the Senate bill, I think they’ve made a pivot away from some of the immigration advocate groups and progressives. And I think they’re banking on the idea that, look, they have nowhere else to go, right? You’re going to support Donald Trump, who talks about immigrants being poison in the American blood and all this other kind of separating families and building mass detention camps at the border? So, look, we’ll see how it plays. But, I think, again, it just reflects the kind of sense at the White House that, as long as these numbers are at the border, they need to be in a much more aggressive posture, even if that upsets, a little bit, the left.”

Earlier, Sandweg stated, “[C]redit to the President, he adopted a bill that, traditionally, would be viewed as a very conservative, immigration enforcement hawk bill, right?”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett