The Democratic mayor of Laredo, Texas, lamented during a new interview that former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies were “working” and that President Biden has allowed the situation at the U.S. southern border to get out of control.
“We need to truly secure the border,” Mayor Pete Saenz told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview published Thursday. “It was working under Trump, call it whatever you want to call it, but it was working.”
“The border’s not secure and hasn’t been for a while,” he said. “We can’t continue this way, and I really haven’t seen any measures yet from Washington to remedy this.”
Saenz said his city’s public services are in desperate need of relief from the federal government after being overwhelmed with providing humanitarian aid, medical services and transportation for the thousands of migrants flooding into his city.
He also said certain Trump-era policies have been beneficial, including the “Remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they await hearings on their requests for safe haven in the U.S. The Biden administration said Wednesday it will again try to terminate the policy after a federal court in Texas ruled that its previous memorandum on ending the policy was against the law.
“The key, ultimately, is removing the incentive to come to the border and file for asylum,” he told the Free Beacon. “I believe in the asylum process. It needs to be followed or changed. If we don’t like the way people are attempting to come, we can have them apply remotely or from either the country of origin or some other place that is close to the country of origin.”
