California Democrat blames Republicans for making border crisis worse

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Congressional Hispanic Caucus member praises Democrats, slams Republicans over border crisis

Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz defended the Biden Administration’s record on the border, suggesting that Democrats are putting "people above politics."

California Democrat Rep. Raul Ruiz blamed Republicans for making the immigration and border crisis worse during a Tuesday interview on MSNBC. 

MSNBC host José Díaz-Balart asked the Ruiz about policy solutions to the growing migrant crisis. 

"Well I think it’s very important to really draw a contrast here, because we’ve seen that the Republican approach to the humanitarian crisis is to create a larger humanitarian crisis, through ridicule, deceit, and mockery for political gain," Ruiz said.

He continued by praising his own party for how they've put "people above politics" when it comes to the border. 

Migrants, many from Central America and Venezuela, walk along the Huehuetan highway in Chiapas state, Mexico, early Tuesday, June 7, 2022.  (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

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"The Democratic approach under the leadership of President Biden is to put people above politics and to modernize our border and to build an international coalition through the summit of the Americas, to make agreements with shared responsibility, to ensure that we send resources, to expedite judges, lawyers, for the court hearings that we need," Ruiz said.

He cited two laws that Democrats in the House passed; the Dream and Promise Act, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act but complained how Senate Republicans are opposed to them, thus preventing them from being passed. 

"However, that’s — those are the steps that we need to do, not, you know, lie and coerce the Venezuelans who are fleeing autocracies and shipping them to different places for political propaganda and theater. We need real solutions," Ruiz said in reference to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, R., flying 50 migrants to Martha's Vineyard.  

Members of one of the migrant caravans riding on a truck in Donaji, Mexico, last week. (AP)

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The number of migrant encounters at the southern border skyrocketed to over 200,000 in August. 

According to the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, encounters with migrants from Mexico and Central America have decreased for the third month in a row, accounting for 36% of unique encounters, while migrants fleeing Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua accounted for 55,333 unique encounters, a 175% increase over last year.

While caravans and mass illegal immigration has been a consistent problem, Biden-era policies seem to correlate with an exponential rise in attempted crossings. There were approximately 72,000 encounters at the end of 2020, which ballooned to 173,000 by March 2021 alone. There have now been over two million encounters this fiscal year, in addition to the more than 1.7 million encounters last fiscal year.

Migrants walk in a caravan heading to Mexico City, in Pijijiapan, Mexico November 4, 2021.  (REUTERS/Daniel Becerril)

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Ruiz slammed the Trump administration's policies towards immigration. 

"Well, there are efforts, and the programs that allowed for asylum claims to happen in their host countries, including for children, was eliminated and defunded by the Trump Administration," Ruiz said. "The Biden Administration has resumed those, including the ability, throughout the path or the journey, to start the process for any asylum claim."

He slammed Republicans again, suggesting that Democrats are ultimately doing a better job at "humanitarian" immigration policy. 

"Now, the way we handle those is the different—you can see the difference between Republicans, who are putting their politics above the humanitarian claims and our own legal system, versus the Democrats, who are professionalizing and bringing humanity back to a system," Ruiz said. "But we also have to go after the drug cartels, and we have to go after the root causes, which President Biden is doing."

Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.