U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had strong words to describe the current state of immigration when she appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight on Tuesday, likening it to a natural disaster.
“Many of the people coming are economic migrants,” Nielsen said. “They are not truly seeking asylum–we want to help those who are–but many of them have been given magic words to come in, and to get a job, and to take that job away from Americans.”
Nielsen went on to say that many options are “on the table,” including closing the border, or Carlson’s suggestion of eliminating birthright citizenship to remove an incentive for undocumented immigrants to cross the border.
“In my opinion right now, this is one of if not the biggest crisis this country has faced in a decade,” Nielsen said, referring to security and humanitarian issues. “This is at the very top of our list at DHS. We’ve announced today that we are now treating this like a massive Cat-5 hurricane disaster.” She added that Congress needs to take it just as seriously.
Carlson used the hurricane analogy to say that during such storms, he’s seen the National Guard in action to protect people. He then asked if such measures could be used for immigration.
“Why wouldn’t we put the U.S. military along our border if it’s really a crisis of that magnitude?” he asked.
“I think we’re looking into that,” Nielsen said. “We’ve made the request. I’m in constant contact with the acting secretary of defense. I talked to some of the combatant commanders today. We are in fact pushing more and more military resources to the border.”
[Image via Fox News screengrab]
