Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois told CBS “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on Sunday that after a recent visit to the southern border, that he would vote against the Dems resolution to rescind President Trump’s national emergency declaration.
Brennan first asked Kinzinger if what he saw constituted a national emergency.
“Yeah, I think it does,” the lawmaker responded. “You know, I went down there kind of undecided. You know I put on my lieutenant colonel hat, was apolitical but obviously I’m looking at this, getting the information I can.”
“And I think if this was just an issue of immigration it wouldn’t constitute a national emergency but what I saw was really disturbing.”
The Air Force pilot recounted finding a woman abandoned in the desert by her border trafficking coyotes, while on another mission they assisted in apprehending a person carrying 70 pounds of methamphetamines.
Kinzinger, who was flying his missions out of Tucson, said the situation in Arizona is completely different than what he saw during a prior border deployment in Texas during the Obama administration.
During this deployment, Border Patrol informed him that they find at least 200 dead people a year in the arid, rough terrain.
Brennan pushed Kinzinger on whether there is truly a crisis, saying according to Border Patrol, apprehensions are near a 50-year low.
Kinzinger responded that while the total apprehended may be down, his experience was large numbers were still crossing.
“There were many, many groups that we would see on technology with camera radar or something like that that we could not go address because there were not enough Border Patrol agents,” the congressman said.
Source: Western Journal
