Jeh Johnson, former DHS secretary in Barack Obama’s administration, called presidential candidate Julian Castro’s proposal to decriminalize illegal border crossing essentially advocacy for “open borders.”
“That is tantamount to declaring publicly that we have open borders,” Johnson told the Washington Post. “That is unworkable, unwise and does not have the support of a majority of American people or the Congress, and if we had such a policy, instead of 100,000 apprehensions a month, it will be multiples of that.”
Other 2020 candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), and Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) as well as South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg have embraced the proposal. Eight of the more than 20 candidates have expressed explicit support for open borders. Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) said he would “virtually eliminate immigration detention,” if elected president.
The crisis at the United States’ southern border reached an inflection point in May, when border agents took more than 144,000 migrants into custody: the highest one-month total in 13 years, according to the Washington Post. At the same time, immigration courts have faced a backlog of people facing asylum hearings as well as over-crowded detention centers across the southern border. – READ MORE