Ken Cuccinelli: Biden-Harris Administration “Wants” a Border Crisis

Many Americans watching the current migrant crisis at the southwestern border are undoubtedly shocked at and frustrated with the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous, bungling response, not to mention Team Biden’s refusal to even call the crisis a crisis. Does the new administration simply not know what it is doing, or is there more to the story? According to Ken Cuccinelli – who served in the Trump administration as Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Acting Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – the “self-inflicted” crisis is actually “purposeful.”

Interviewed by the Fox Business Network on March 19, the former USCIS official stated that “this is not an accident. During the transition we told them what would happen if they went this route, so it is both predictable and predicted, and they went down this route.” Why? According to Cuccinelli, “they [Biden-Harris] want this flood at the border.”

He acknowledged that this may be “hard for people to believe, but when you see amnesty bills going that they’re [the Biden administration]backing, then you understand why, (…) they view this as a long-term play for votes coming across that border, and they don’t care that it happens by breaking the law (…).”

Cuccinelli added that “it’s a tragic situation, [and]it’s pathetic that the [DHS] secretary [Alejandro Mayorkas] is just getting down to the border now (…) really all they’re doing is they’re not trying to stop the problem, they’re just trying to put makeup on a pig here, and that’s it.”

Cuccinelli also excoriated the administration for “hiding” and “burying” the humanitarian problems associated with the disaster at the border. He added that the migrants “are being used as political pawns, and it’s very destructive. Even Mexico is complaining about the flood rolling through Mexico to get to our border, and the drug cartels have never been happier.” And the administration is simply employing “an ostrich strategy” by “hop[ing]the world looks somewhere else.”

Some may dismiss this perspective as “conspiracy” thinking. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that the Biden-Harris administration is in over its head, failed to think through the consequences of their policies, and does not know how to effectively react to the crisis it generated. The problem with the incompetence explanation is that the people responsible have years, or even decades of government experience. Kamala Harris served in the U.S. Senate and had also been the attorney general of California, a southwestern border state with a long history of illegal migration. Alejandro Mayorkas served in the Obama administration. And Joe Biden not only spent almost 40 years in the Senate but also served as Barack Obama’s second-in-command for eight years. While in the Obama administration, both Biden and Mayorkas also had a migrant crisis on their hands in 2014.

On top of that, as Cuccinelli pointed out, the Biden transition team was told what would happen if they pursued their preferred policies, and Team Biden went through with them anyway as soon as it got into the White House.

A plausible factor that likely plays a role is that the new Democratic administration is a hostage to its own ideology – one which sees policies that are soft on illegal migration as somehow “compassionate,” while viewing immigration enforcement and border security as allegedly “cruel” or “inhumane.” This thinking is fueled by left-wing guilt about America’s past real or alleged sins, and the accompanying desire to feel virtuous (e.g. see the attempts of Biden’s southern border coordinator, Roberta Jacobson, to spin the border crisis as a matter of “hope” and a “more humane policy”).

Of course, people are not mind readers. All we have to go by are actions. But regardless of the motivations of administration officials, it is clear that there is a crisis, and that it must be addressed. And if team Biden-Harris is simply incompetent, it would do well to consult with the previous administration’s officials – such as Mr. Cuccinelli – to learn about policies that can effectively stem the tide.