Fox News Cameras Catch Mass Street Release of Illegal Immigrants During Live Shot Expected to Cause 'Political Issue' for Gavin Newsom
The border crisis is most strongly identified with the state of Texas — a red state run by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, and a place the White House and Democrats would greatly prefer it would stay.
Unfortunately, Abbott — as Republicans are wont to do — actually took steps to stop illegal immigration into his state, the mountebank. Thus, more and more migrants are crossing, instead, into border states run by Democrat governors. One of them, California, just so happens to have a governor who, if he doesn’t have his eye on becoming president in 2028, is doing a very bad job of pretending he doesn’t want the job.
And, as Fox News’ illegal immigration expert Bill Melugin noted from an on-site report in San Diego on Friday, “these images are probably going to cause him a little bit of a political issue.”
“These images” referred to a line of illegal immigrants that were boarding a bus to travel from San Diego to other places in the United States; the migrants were being bused by a non-governmental organization that went unidentified in the clip.
According to Fox News, the roughly 200 illegal immigrants were released by Border Patrol in the San Ysidro area of the city to the NGO after a migrant center was forced to close this week due to an influx of new arrivals.
“San Diego County recently spent millions of taxpayer dollars to create a migrant shelter where some of these migrants could stay. That shelter just ran out of money this week,” Melugin said.
Bill Wells, the mayor of nearby El Cajon, California, told Fox News that the wave of illegal immigrants crossing the border into California had become a “serious problem” for his town and that “over the past few months, we’ve seen 100,000 migrants come across the San Diego border.”
The footage from San Diego came on the same day Gov. Newsom was in Washington, D.C., for talks with President Joe Biden’s administration; Newsom’s office put out a media release saying the governor “met with top White House officials on key California priorities today, focusing on securing more resources to tackle homelessness and behavioral health.”
Illegal immigration, you will not be surprised to learn, did not appear to be on the agenda — or if it was, Newsom’s office wasn’t touting it.
Meanwhile, Melugin was talking with the illegal immigrants from countries like China, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India and Senegal, all of whom either sought work, asylum or perhaps both.
Their stated destinations were places like Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and New Jersey — again, blue locales that have started to complain loudly now that the border crisis is affecting them.
Melugin said he had been texting with officials, including El Cajon Mayor Wells, saying that “Everyone’s frustrated that the federal government essentially just says ‘you deal with it,’ they dump them in a city and say ‘good luck.’”
And part of it is because, thanks to Texas trying — and succeeding, at some level, despite Biden’s best intentions to thwart them — to secure the border, illegal immigrants were coming to places like California.
Fox News anchors asked whether Newsom had said anything about this.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Melugin said.
“I know he’s in Washington, D.C., today — but, eventually, look, these images are probably going to cause him a little bit of a political issue. Look, what’s happening in Texas. They are fortifying their border with razor wire, with National Guard, with troopers, they’re kicking the feds out and their illegal crossings have fallen off a cliff here.
“What has happened as a result? A lot of the illegal crossings are now in — a big majority of them are now in — California and Arizona, blue states run by blue governors who really aren’t doing any sort of resistance at the state level in terms of trying to stop these illegal crossings.”
NEW: We were live on the air as the first of many Border Patrol buses began arriving and mass releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants to San Diego’s streets. We spoke to many of them live – they are from all around the world and they are planning to go to blue cities in U.S. pic.twitter.com/7AZlNL0TFP
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) February 23, 2024
Newsom’s office did have a comment for Fox News, telling them that “[w]hen it comes to border security, Republicans in Congress have done nothing but create chaos and sabotage any attempts at progress,” a spokesperson said.
“In the absence of any political courage from the Republican Party, California has once again stepped up — making historic investments and serving as a model of partnership for a safe and humane border. It’s past time for the spineless politicians in Congress to do their job.”
What Newsom’s office is referring to is a so-called “border bill” — really an omnibus spending bill that includes money for Ukraine and Israel — that House Republicans have made clear is insufficient.
“This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on social media after the bill passed the Senate.
I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, “the border never closes.”
If this bill reaches the House, it will be…
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 5, 2024
“As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes,’” Johnson added, noting: “If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival.”
So, what’s the solution beyond that? Fortifying California’s borders? Telling illegal immigrants not to come? Stop pretending there isn’t a border crisis?
The fact that Joe Biden is unwilling to do this is part of the reason his approval rating is below 40 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate. Newsom doesn’t have to fret about this, having just won re-election in one of the nation’s most liberal states. If he hopes to make it to any higher office, however, he can’t stop pretending this doesn’t matter and it’s all on the Republicans to step up and do what the Democrats say — which wouldn’t make the slightest difference, anyhow.
Gavin Newsom owns this. And if he doesn’t do anything, it’s only going to get worse from here.
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