Exclusive — Sen. Tim Scott: Democrats Are ‘Virtue Signaling’ on Immigration to Keep Senate Control

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) accused Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) of playing electoral politics by resurrecting a failed border bill that is certain to go nowhere once again.

“This is absolutely about Chuck Schumer trying to keep Democrats in Senate seats,” Scott told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview Wednesday night.

Schumer’s immigration bill was negotiated earlier in 2024 by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and James Lankford (R-OK) as part of a broader deal to unlock tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid. That deal failed after details of the border component revealed the pro-migration legislation would increase green cards and work permits and tie a future administration’s hands to stop a migration spike, among countless other problems.

The deal’s disastrous details led Scott to memorably declare he was a “Hades no” on the bill.

Schumer is bringing the stand-alone border bill back to the Senate floor Thursday. President Joe Biden has endorsed the legislation, lobbying lawmakers to approve the package and increase immigration into the country.

The bill will fail. Scott pointed out that the Schumer-led Senate’s performative vote — which pundits have suggested is engineered to give endangered Sens. John Tester (D-MT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Bob Casey (D-PA) cover — is not a serious attempt to address a critical threat facing Americans.

“They could have done something bout this a long time ago, but they decided not to,” Scott told Breitbart News, accusing Democrats of not only politicizing immigration and border control but taking steps to inflame the problem.

“Frankly, I think — zoom out — it’s bigger than just that. Joe Biden made over 90 decisions in the first 100 days that destroyed our border security. And, now, because of election challenges, they’re interested in not even solving the problem but virtue signaling.”

By politicizing the issue, Democrats are ignoring a real threat Americans justifiably rank as one of their top concerns, he said.

“[Democrats] aren’t worried about the 70,000 Americans who’ve lost their lives to fentanyl,” Scott said. “They’re not worried about sleeper cells in our country. They’re not even worried about the fact that we’ve seen a 6,000 percent increase in Chinese nationals coming across our southern border. No, they’re worrying about the prospects on November 5. And virtue signaling does not solve problems. It’s frustrating to me.”

EXCLUSIVE: Thousands of Migrants Cross Border into Eagle Pass, Texas

Randy Clark / Breitbart Texas

Scott said Biden — who has vacillated between claiming he does not have authority on the border and threatening unilateral action — could take steps today to undo the damage he has inflicted.

“Here’s what we know: President Trump built about 570 miles of the border wall. President Trump did that,” he said. “President Biden could — instead of selling construction material for more border wall — he could have used that construction material to put physical impediments between dangerous people and the American people. If they were serious about the border security writ large, he could rescind the 90 — I think it was 93 — but 90-plus executive orders, or he could at least go back to the Remain in Mexico policy. He could at least look at President Trump’s success on asylum policy. He could at least talk about and fund more Border Patrol agents and give them overtime and incentive pay.

“Instead of doing any of those layups, he would just rather go to a microphone and tell the American people — as Kamala Harris did — ‘The border is secure, and believe what we say instead of what you see.'”

Scott endorsed Trump in January after suspending his own presidential campaign. Since then, he has been one of Trump’s most effective and popular surrogates, encouraging Americans to unite behind Trump and traveling the country speaking on Trump’s behalf.

Ultimately, the South Carolinian believes Trump’s return to the White House will be necessary to solve the border crisis. He laid out actions Republicans would begin taking immediately after Trump’s inauguration.

“We were better off under Donald Trump, so having four more years of Donald Trump and allowing him to rescind the executive orders will be the first leap towards border security,” he explained. “The second thing we would do is codify Remain in Mexico policy, to codify into law asylum policies that don’t allow people to come in our country and wait ten years.”

Empowering law enforcement to deport illegal aliens would be a key component of Republicans’ strategy, Scott said.

“I think you’d see action on a deportation strategy to take the ten million new arrivals — the greatest invasion in American history — and have them taken out of the country as they interact with law enforcement. As President Trump has said, empowering local law enforcement is a serious and important tool and the deportation strategy we would need. I think there’s a few steps that we can take.”

Scott said building a wall along the southern border — the issue Trump used to rocket to the Republican nomination in 2016 — must be a priority for a country serious about solving the immigration problem and not simply using it as a political wedge.

“And, finally, border wall: Let’s finish the wall and get the resources from the Inflation Reduction Act — maybe the most perverted use of the word ‘reduction’ in my lifetime — and put that money on the border.”

“Why not actually be serious about America’s national security problems, starting at our southern border?” Scott concluded.

Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.