| Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla. |
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Retired Border Patrol Chief Chris Clem Retired Border Patrol Chief Chris Clem told Newsmax's "The Count" that an immigration ad by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., amounted to pandering, and said he hoped it "blows up in her face." Salazar, a three-term House member first elected in 2020, released the ad Thursday, telling Trump directly that "some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," according to Time. "In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record," she said in the ad, Florida Phoenix reported. Separately, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border in July were 94% lower than the Biden administration's monthly average and 96% below the December 2023 peak. The agencies said the figures marked 15 consecutive months without the release of a single apprehended migrant into the U.S. interior. Speaking Saturday, Clem called border security "an enduring mission" and said officials "continue to need to put the foot on the gas." Reflecting on the numbers, he said President Donald Trump had accomplished in "one month" what his predecessor could not manage "in 19 months," crediting the shift to a White House willing to "trust the men and women" doing the job at the border. "We absolutely have seen that it can be sustained," Clem said, adding that "we are no longer tolerating catch and release." Clem then criticized Salazar's ad. "Well, it was a terrible ad, and it is pandering," he said, arguing that the congresswoman conflated enforcement against lawbreakers with immigration overall. Trump, he said, is targeting people "in violation of the U.S. immigration codes and U.S. Laws," and he dismissed Salazar's message as "a bunch of nonsense that is just pandering." "I hate losing slots in Congress, but my gosh, that was terrible," Clem added. Asked whether the border numbers would help Republicans keep their House majority in November, Clem said: "Midterms are always going to be, you know, tricky." The Cook Political Report rates Salazar's seat "Likely Republican" as she faces Democrat Eliott Rodriguez in November. Credit: https://www.newsmax.com/politics/ |
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