‘Not a Talking Point For Me!’ Sinema Fumes At GOP Senators ‘Living In the Interior’ of the Country and Playing Politics With the Border

Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema (I), who led the negotiations on the now-dead bipartisan border deal, slammed her Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate for playing politics with border security while on Fox News Wednesday.

After a lengthy explanation on how her bill reformed the asylum and deportation process for illegal migrants, anchor Bill Hemmer asked Sinema whether or not tougher laws would even be enforced.

“You said on CBS this past weekend, ‘The reason we’re doing this is we’re we’re.’ Excuse me. ‘We require the Biden administration in any future administration to actually implement this. What we’re seeing from the American people is that they see laws on the books, and they see this administration not enforcing the laws,’” Hemmer began.

“Why would they believe that now?” he asked.

“Well, you know, we agree on this issue. The Biden administration has not done a good job of implementing laws on the books, but we do know that we have to actually change laws to make some of this more possible, right?” Sinema replied, adding:

Former President Trump tried to keep, like before Title 42 was in effect before Covid, he tried to shut down the border and he was stopped by the courts. And as we know, the courts ended Title 42. I’ve been trying to reinstate it since that time, but we actually have to change the law. So we have the authority to do that.

We actually have to change the asylum policy standards to make it harder for people to actually get asylum. Right now, people who are economic migrants just claim asylum and get to come into the country. We need to change that law. And President Trump asked to change that law as well. But what our bill does that is different than we’ve seen in former laws is we mandate we require the administration to implement these policies like the border closure. We don’t just say, you can’t do it if you want to. We require the administration to do that.

“But, that requires enforcement,” Hemmer pressed.

“Just because it’s in the words on a sheet of paper doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. That’s what we’re hearing from ranchers for 2,000 miles along that southwest border,” he added.

“You’re exactly right. And that’s why our legislation specifically created right to sue for states to sue the federal government if they failed to implement the law,” Sinema replied, further explaining her bill:

As you know, prior lawsuits trying to force the Biden administration to implement laws have failed because courts have held that there was no jurisdiction to sue. Our bill actually created judicial review and gave a right to sue if the federal government failed to implement the law. Now, that has never been done before, and it’s unfortunate that that will also go by the wayside today when my colleagues choose to kill this bill before we debate.

“Is the bill dead? It’s over?” interjected anchor Dana Perino.

“It is. Unfortunately, yesterday, the Senate Republican Conference announced that they’re not going to support even debating the bill. And I’m disappointed,” Sinema replied.

“I mean, I know you’re making a decision whether to run. Does something like this make you want to not run for office again?” Perino followed up.

“You know, I’m 100% focused on just getting this job done. And so while others have decided that border security is just a talking point for the election, I can promise you this. As someone who was born and raised near the border in Arizona, this is not a talking point for me. This is our daily lives. And I hear from our ranchers. I hear from our police officers. I hear from our farmers every day. This crisis will be here tomorrow and the next day,” Sinema replied.

Hemmer tried again to ask if Sinema would seek reelection.

“Well, I can tell you that decision won’t be made today, because today I’m going to continue to remind my colleagues of the consequences of their decision. Look, it may not be a consequence for them living in some state in the interior of the country, but in Arizona, this isn’t politics, guys. This is our daily life. And I am incredibly disappointed that people have chosen politics over the lives of the families, the farmers, the ranchers, and folks living every day in southern Arizona,” Sinema replied.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.