Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke out Tuesday on Fox News about the significant impact of the ongoing southern border crisis across the country.
Kennedy appeared on “Jesse Watters Primetime” to discuss his thoughts on President Joe Biden’s handling of the southern border situation. Fox host Jesse Watters asked Kennedy if he thought Biden was a “national security threat” due to the effects of illegal immigration on the country.
While Kennedy appeared to avoid blaming Biden, he slammed a recent viral video showing an MSNBC panel laughing when they heard that immigration was the top concern for Virginia voters. (RELATED: NYC Officials Crack Down On Another Storefront Illegally Sheltering Migrants)
“Well, you know, it was dismaying to see those hosts on MSNBC – Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, and Jen Psaki – ridiculing middle-class Americans who are concerned about what’s happening at the border,” Kennedy said. “What’s happening at the border would be unsustainable and unacceptable in any country in the world. We are watching – and it’s not racist to say that the Mexican drug cartel should not be controlling U.S. border policy. I’ve been down there twice and it is absolutely horrendous. There’s 7 million people who have walked across the border and gotten free plane tickets. Many of them, any destination they want.”
“As you pointed out, Mayor [Eric] Adams in New York City has said this is an existential threat to New York City,” Kennedy went on. “He was not exaggerating. New York City had to cut its police budget by 5%, its sanitation by 5%, its education and healthcare budgets by 5% in order to pay for this influx of immigrants that have come into the city. There are now encampments at Randall’s island, which are on the playing field in New York’s public schools.”
“So for two and a half years during Covid, these kids, many of them on scholarship trajectory, could not play their sports and it ruined many of their hopes for a certain kind of life,” Kennedy said. “Today they can’t play again because there is illegal immigrants encamped on the street. And immigrants are being preyed upon, it’s a humanitarian crisis for them as well. I saw it at the border. They’ve been exploited, extorted, many raped, robbed, brutalized by the cartels before they come across. They come here and they can’t legally work so they are preyed upon by unscrupulous employers who pay them $8, $9, $10, $12 an hour. There’s contractors in New York that are hiring them for those and then they are bidding against union shops for jobs. So it’s hurting everybody. It’s damaging our country.”
The blue city began to receive significant numbers of migrants last year after Texas began to bus them over. Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams flip-flopped back and forth on the issue, recently saying the city needed to “modify” their “sanctuary city law.” However, Adams announced in February that a new $53 million taxpayer-funded program would be handing out prepaid credit cards to illegal immigrants.