Democratic Senator Clashes With Fox’s MacCallum Over Biden’s Border Policy: ‘Let Me Finish’

Fox News host Martha MacCallum clashed with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) over President Joe Biden’s response to the recent surge of migrants across the southern border.

In recent months, Republicans in Congress, along with Republican governors criticized the Biden administration for its border policy and have demanded stronger security measures along the border to prevent migrants from crossing.

During a Wednesday interview on Fox News, MacCallum pressed Coons on Biden’s response by bringing up comments from other prominent Democratic leaders. New York Mayor Eric Adams has warned about the financial burden his city has from helping a large amount of asylum seekers resettle.

COONS: When the president asked for supplemental funding from the Congress, he asked for billions more for border security. He also in the State of the Union speech that began this year, said our immigration system is badly broken. I need Congress to act to fix it. And Senator Cornyn invited me and a large bipartisan group to join him in visiting the border in El Paso, Texas, and later to go to Mexico City to meet with the president and leadership of Mexico. I really appreciate, Senator Cornyn, leadership on this. And a bipartisan group of us here in this Senate need to come together, fund additional border security, as our president has requested, and make progress on this issue.

MACCALLUM: But that money is to process people and to add border agents. It is not to turn people away. It’s not to close the border and say the country’s full, which is what these governors, including Pritzker and Adams, and Hochul, are asking for. They want people to stop coming. Senator, that money’s not for that.

COONS: Well, Martha, to be clear, there is a proposal from a number of Democrats to add billions to border security, to processing at border ports of entry, to inspecting vehicles, to inspecting people. One of our largest trade partners in the world is Mexico. There are thousands of trucks and buses and trains and people crossing the border every day in both directions to work. We don’t want to shut that down, but we do want to get control of our border and prevent illegal migration. The challenge is doing so.

MACCALLUM: What happens if one of those trucks is coming across the border and it is full of migrants who are crossing here to be taken care of, essentially? Would you send them back?

COONS: Well, it depends on what their status is and who they are. In many cases, the administration is sending them back. And for much of the last two years, that’s been the case. There are regular flights returning.

MACCALLUM: We have millions of people who have crossed into the country. Millions, millions.

COONS: I just got asked to approve funding for additional flights, repatriating folks who cross the border illegally. Our challenge, Martha, as you know…if you’ll let me finish, is to balance our moral commitment and our treaty commitment to allow those who are seeking asylum, who are genuinely fleeing oppression and violence because of their religion or their political views or their commitment to democracy and to successfully weed out those who do not have a credible fear of persecution and should return to them.

MACCALLUM: We know that 80-90% of asylum requests do not fall in the area of acceptable, legitimate asylum requests.

Hard-right-leaning Republicans in Congress have demanded that Biden address immigration and border security during negotiations over funding the government.

Watch the full segment above via Fox News.