NEW YORK CITY—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today joined America Reports on Fox News live in-studio to discuss the repercussions of the Biden Border Crisis, including the tragic murder of Laken Riley.
Partial Transcript
Hagerty on every Senate Democrat voting to include illegal immigrants in allocation of congressional seats: “It’s amazing that they’re talking about playing politics when all this Administration is doing is playing politics and reaching for political power. That’s why we have this influx of illegal migrants coming into the country. It’s about political power at the end of the day, and we almost shut down Congress Friday night. [Senator] Chuck Schumer threatened to do that to me when I forced every Democrat to go on the record and vote that they want to count illegal immigrants in the allocation of congressional districts and electoral votes. That’s what this is about. The motive for the crime at our border is power. It’s their ability to count illegal immigrants so that they can use their sanctuary cities in blue states to get more power than they otherwise would get. And what happened here is politics, and that’s the reason Laken [Riley] is dead.”
Hagerty on Biden’s easing of sanctions on Venezuela exacerbating illegal immigration: “You heard the conversation about this Venezuelan that allegedly committed this murder of Laken Riley, but if you think about it, when President [Donald] Trump was in office, he essentially delivered the most secure border that we’ve seen as a nation. He had sanctioned Maduro and the Venezuelan regime; we don’t have information on these Venezuelans that come in. When I was just down at the border two and a half weeks ago, they told me that they have no information. The presumption is the Biden Administration will let them in; they’ll invite them in. This same person that’s accused of the murder of Laken committed crimes here in New York [and was] released by a woke prosecutor with no bail. You see what happens? He moves to Georgia and commits the most heinous of crimes. My heart goes out to Laken’s family—President Trump thankfully met with [them]—he showed some grace. Joe Biden is only kowtowing to the illegals in apologizing to them. It’s shocking.”
Hagerty on Americans’ concerns about violent criminals entering the U.S. illegally: “The concern is real across America, and my colleagues in the Congress will be asking about this. Just in the past year, Sandra, we’ve had 170 different nationalities apprehended at the southern border. I was just there a few weeks ago, as I mentioned, I was talking to the rancher there, said he found 15 Syrians on his property, all adult males. Why didn’t they submit themselves to asylum? They didn’t. They’re there for another reason. It’s frightening what’s happening here.”
Hagerty on the Biden Administration not taking the border crisis seriously: “Certainly, they’re not taking it seriously. But again, getting back to what happened Friday night when Chuck Schumer almost shut down the Senate, you got to get to the motive of this crime. What they’re trying to do is backfill these states that are losing population. You think about it, New York, Illinois, California, people are leaving in droves. They’re coming to home states like mine and Tennessee and Florida. What’s happening? They saturate sanctuary cities right here in New York, in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. These [cities] act as magnets to attract these illegal migrants, and then they want to count these illegal migrants for the purposes of allocating congressional districts and electoral votes. We caught the Congresswoman here in Brooklyn on air saying that ‘she needs these illegal migrants for redistricting purposes.’ She doesn’t want to lose her congressional district. This is about power at the end of the day. And they want to use illegal migrants to gain more political power at the expense of states like mine that don’t have so many illegal migrants. They’re taking away our voting power.”
Hagerty on the dangers of violent criminals entering the U.S. because of Biden’s open border policies: “I think Laken Riley proves it…This Venezuelan criminal illegally enters the country in 2022, commits a crime here in New York against a child, in 2023, is immediately let go without bail, and then runs to Georgia. [He] flees there—we saw Venezuelan gangsters beat up New York police officers here—and they then flee to California. No one’s cooperating. This is what happens when you have sanctuary cities.”
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