Liberal CNN host and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria trashed the Biden administration’s immigration policy Friday.
In a column, Zakaria argued that the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant surge, which he admitted now threatens major blue cities, is about as ineffective as “Band-Aids on a massive, open wound.”
Zakaria began his Friday column for The Post, titled “Democrats need to admit that they’re wrong on immigration,” with the acknowledgment that Democrats’ handling of immigration is so poor, it may cost them upcoming elections.
He wrote, “The Democrats are confronting a crisis that could cripple their chances at the polls at the national, state and local level. I’m talking about immigration. It’s happening not only because Republicans are taking advantage of the problem but also because Democrats are unwilling to accept that their policy ideas on the issue are wrong and grossly inadequate to the challenge at hand.”
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CNN’s Fareed Zakaria blasted the Biden administrations handling of the border crisis. (AP)
In addition to mentioning the immigration problems facing the southern border, he pointed out major U.S. cities dealing with fallout from these policies.
The CNN host wrote, “Apprehensions at the southern border are surging again. Texas border towns have long been inundated by the waves of arrivals, but now that migrants are being bused into cities such as New York, Chicago and D.C., local governments there are facing backbreaking expenses to house them.”
He also mentioned New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ plight dealing with the influx of migrants, adding, Adams “was exaggerating only slightly when he said the problem would ‘destroy’ the city.”
“The migrant crisis is exposing Democratic policy weakness at every level, from an administration that is scared to take on its progressive wing and take bold action to states such as New York and Massachusetts, which have ‘right to shelter’ rules that are utterly unworkable in the face of this onslaught,” he continued.
Zakaria’s column took direct aim at the Biden administration, stating their “various efforts have amounted to Band-Aids on a massive, open wound. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said repeatedly that the asylum system is broken. But if that’s true, we need a drastic, dramatic overhaul of the system, and neither he nor President Biden is proposing anything like that.”
President Joe Biden walks along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texas, Jan. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
The columnist also pushed back on those arguing America should continue to take in those fleeing persecution, pointing to “two realities that are critical to turning this idealistic impulse into a workable system.”
The CNN host explained the U.S. couldn’t possibly take in all the world’s persecuted people and furthermore, the country “cannot be forced to give priority to people who break the law and enter the country illegally — and then claim asylum status to legitimize their entry — as opposed to those who follow the rules, apply from their home countries and wait their turn. But that is what is happening every day at the southern border.”
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He added that “asylum cases must be special and distinct from the cases of people from all over the world who are trying to immigrate to the United States because they are fleeing poverty, disease or violence.”
Zakaria claimed when the “system of due process collapses” thanks to all those who decided “it would be simpler to pay cartels to help them cross the border illegally” and then “present themselves as asylum seekers,” the fallout with be “most unfair to those who have legitimate claims to asylum or legal immigrant status.”
His solution to the crisis is that “The president must use the power he has in existing law to suspend entirely the admission of asylum seekers while the system digests the millions of immigration cases already pending.”
In 2019, Zakaria warned about the U.S.’s asylum system, going so far as to argue that then-President Donald Trump was correct about problems at the border.
During the segment on CNN, he also said, “Democrats have spent most of their efforts on this topic, assailing the Trump administration for its heartlessness. Fine. But that does not address the roots of this genuine crisis. If things continue to spiral downward and America’s southern border seems out of control, Trump’s tough rhetoric and hard-line stance will become increasingly attractive to the public.”
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