Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo pushed back against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ comments Tuesday after he said he would “finally” end the problem of illegal immigration.
Speaking in Eagle Pass, Texas, DeSantis promised to close the southern border.
“We are going to be the administration that finally brings the issue of our southern border to a conclusion. We will stop the invasion. We will reassert our nation’s sovereignty and we will fight these cartels so that Americans stop dying from their poison.”
“What is your reaction to DeSantis’ visit to the border?” Bartiromo asked Thomas Homan, the former acting director of ICE under former president Donald Trump. (RELATED: DeSantis: Border Crisis Is ‘Intentional Policy Rooted In An Open Borders Ideology’)
“Well, if you’re going to quote the Trump playbook, I think he should at least mention his name. Look, I appreciate Ron DeSantis, he’s done a great job in Florida and got some great immigration legislation there, but let’s be clear, I worked for six presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan. No one, no one did more than President Trump to secure the border,” Homan said. “Illegal immigration went down 83%. Illegal immigration went down to a 45-year-low. So, President Trump had unprecedented success, something I’ve never seen in my 35-year-career. So, again, I appreciate Ron DeSantis wants to take border security seriously, but everything he mentioned yesterday has already been done by the Trump administration, was very successful by the Trump administration. At least he’s paying attention that these policies worked.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why he said, ‘we’re finally going to get control,’ when we know that Trump had control. You’re right, it was at a 40-plus percent low, now we’re at a 20-plus percent high in terms of number of apprehensions under the Biden Administration,” Bartiromo said.
Under the Biden administration, there were more than 2.2 million encounters at the southern border in fiscal year 2022 and more than 1.4 million between October 2022 and May, according to federal data. DeSantis is pledging to build a wall and target drug cartels.