Udall to Pompeo: “Do you believe our country is ‘full,’ as the president has said?”
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6tzC4OUsHc&feature=youtu.be
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall pressed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the Trump administration’s stance toward Mexico and Central America, including President Trump’s continued threats to seal off the U.S.-Mexico border and his proposal to cut off direct aid to the Northern Triangle countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – in response to the recent influx of migrants from these nations seeking asylum in the United States.
“Secretary Pompeo, our southern border increasingly looks like a war zone, like Germany with the Berlin Wall or the DMZ on the Korean peninsula. We have Border Patrol agents harassing and separating families, and caging children. Members of the military supporting a made up emergency. When the reality is that U.S. border communities are just as safe—and often safer—than anywhere else in the United States. This is reminiscent of how enemies treat one another,” Udall noted during his questioning. He then questioned whether Pompeo believed that the United States should close the southern border and turn away those seeking asylum.
Udall asked , “Do you believe our country is ‘full,’ as the president has said , and that we should not accept any more asylum seekers or immigrants to the United States?”
Pompeo did not respond to Udall’s question, and replied that the U.S. is the “most generous nation in the history of civilization”-- a remark that, while historically true, stands in stark contrast to the president’s current policies and recent statement that “our country is FULL!” . Pompeo instead insisted that he would continue “working with the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico as a foreign policy matter” to address the situation.
In response, Udall noted that the administration is in fact cutting off aid to the Northern Triangle countries -- a policy that is not supported by security and foreign policy experts, including five former U.S. Southern Command leaders who condemned the decision and wrote that cutting aid “ will only increase the drivers [of migration] and will be even more costly to deal with on our border .”
“The reality is, and I think a lot of policy experts on the Northern Triangle are saying, it’s a very bad policy to cut off foreign aid to the three countries down there where these folks are originating from. That’s one of our levers to keep them there and to keep the countries more stable,” Udall concluded.
In an earlier statement , Udall slammed President Trump’s threats to close the entire southern border, which would jeopardize New Mexico’s booming border economy and risk its thriving trade and cultural relationship with Mexico. Pompeo also did not answer whether he believed the southern border should be closed.
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