Republican presidential candidate visits US-Mexico border to highlight illegal migration

By Rabia Iclal Turan

WASHINGTON (AA) - Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley visited the US-Mexico border Monday, where she criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policy.

“What I saw today was a dereliction of duty,” Haley, the first Republican candidate to announce a bid for the White House, said during a press conference in Eagle Pass, Texas.

“A president has one job, and that's to keep Americans safe. There is nothing that is keeping Americans safe like what we saw today. There is first of all no border. There are pieces of a border, but there's really no border,” she said.

“This is a crisis. And it's not just a crisis for the people of Texas. This is a crisis for every American family,” she added.

Haley proposed a mandatory E-Verify program to make sure that “no business can hire any illegal immigrants.”

“The second thing is you make sure that we fire the 87,000 IRS agents and hire at least 25,000 Border Patrol agents so that we can go and give these other border patrol agents the help they need,” she continued.

“I talked to Border Patrol today. You know what they said? Their job is babysitting,” she said.

She also proposed defunding sanctuary cities.