Karl Rove: Biden now has ‘three strikes’ on border crisis
Fox News contributor reacts to Biden's border visit and the classified Biden documents
A flabbergasted Karl Rove called out President Biden's "shocking" week of failures on the border crisis after U.S. and Mexican Cabinet officials reportedly "ran out of time" to discuss the migrant surge at Monday's North American Leaders' Summit.
"I'm gobsmacked," the Fox News contributor said on "America's Newsroom" Thursday, calling the report the third strike for the president after visiting a "cleaned up" El Paso and the administration's "non-answers" on how to address the broken U.S. immigration system.
"For God's sake, this shows that his visit to El Paso was for PR purposes only and that he has no understanding of what is going on on our southern border and the misery that's being affected on our communities and the illegal migrants coming across the border," Rove said.
"They do not understand. They do not care. They're living in la-la land."
BIDEN RIPPED FOR NOT MEETING WITH MIGRANTS DURING BORDER VISIT: ‘HE DID NOT COME TO SEE THIS’
President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrive for a news conference at the 10th North American Leaders' Summit at the National Palace in Mexico City, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador instead challenged Biden on his "forgetfulness" to help Central American countries during the summit, pressing the president on his "abandonment" of the region.
"[Biden] doesn't walk into that meeting and say, 'Boys, I know we need to talk about energy and economy, mutual cooperation, but I need to start with a big problem that's affecting us all: our southern border and your southern border, Mr. President of Mexico.' And he doesn't even bring it up?" Rove asked.
The summit came after critics slammed the president for seeing a "sanitized" version of the migrant crisis in Texas during his brief visit last week, where he failed to meet with a single migrant.
US President Joe Biden speaks with a member of the US Border Patrol as they walk along the US-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
"He finally goes to the border, El Paso. But they clean everything up so that the press crew traveling with him doesn't see what the people of El Paso are having to suffer through every day and what the illegal migrants are having to suffer through living in tent cities on city streets," Rove noted.
Last week Biden announced an expansion of a humanitarian parole program for Venezuelan nationals to include Haitians, Cubans and Nicaraguans. That program will allow 30,000 individuals a month from all four countries to be paroled into the U.S. for a two-year period as long as they have a financial sponsor and pass other conditions. Those who attempt to enter illegally are made ineligible for the program.
"I'm still trying to figure out what the heck they recommended," Rove responded. "We're going to allow certain people from certain countries to be processed quicker and allowed them to stay in the United States. Where is the thing that's going to say we're going to secure the border?"
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Since entering office, Biden has presided over more than 5.5 million illegal border crossings and more than 1.2 million known got-aways.
"It is shocking that the president of the United States will not understand the impact that this is having on the border and on the states along the Mexican border," Rove concluded.
Fox News' Adam Shaw and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.
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