Arizona rancher slams Biden's immigration policies
Arizona rancher John Ladd, who lives along the Arizona-Mexico border, has been witnessing the situation escalate firsthand.
Arizona rancher John Ladd warned on Tuesday that U.S. Border Patrol agents and communities are "overwhelmed" by the surge of migrants, who he said are "busting" into their towns.
"We got spoiled with Donald Trump," Ladd told "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday as he slammed President Biden’s immigration policies amid a surge of migrants at the U.S. southern border.
The rancher who lives along the Arizona-Mexico border and has been witnessing the situation escalate firsthand, went on to say that the Biden administration is "letting everybody come now" over the border. He warned that "it's going to ruin our country."
"It started before Biden even took office," Ladd said. "As soon as the election was over, he promised amnesty to 11 million people. Here they come."
In his first week in office, President Biden signed a number of executive orders, including the administration’s 100-day moratorium on deportations. Ahead of Biden’s inauguration, a large migrant caravan had been making its way to America's southern border, with others reportedly following suit in the weeks after.
In a break from Trump’s immigration policies, under Biden, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would primarily apprehend and remove people who pose a threat to national security, committed crimes designated as "aggravated" felonies or recently crossed the border, according to guidelines released last month.
TOM HOMAN: BIDEN'S BORDER SURGE – HERE'S HOW PRESIDENT'S TEAM HAS CREATED A CRISIS IN RECORD TIME
Former President Trump, whose administration took hundreds of measures to restrict both legal and illegal immigration, directed ICE to apprehend anyone who was in the country illegally.
Recently, ICE officers and agents have expressed concern about a directive that will limit their ability to conduct enforcement operations and could lead to potentially dangerous people getting into the country, Jon Feere, a senior adviser to ICE under Trump, said.
Speaking with Sinclair's "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson" on Sunday, an Arizona border chief warned that illegal immigration is on track to overtake the past three years combined.
"Right now we are about 100% over where we were this time this last fiscal year," John Modlin, the interim chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said.
"In the first four months of this fiscal year, we’ve already surpassed all of 2018," he added. "If the flow continues at the rate it is here, by the end of this fiscal year we will have surpassed, 18, 19 and 20 all combined."
On Tuesday, host Brian Kilmeade asked Ladd what he would say to those who think there is no crisis at the border.
"They’re living under a rock somewhere," he responded.
President Biden signed 17 executive actions during his first day in office—many of which reversed Trump administration policies and directives—like cancellation of border wall funding and construction.
"We've had the contractor down here since last April working on Donald Trump's 30-foot wall. They [the Biden administration] shut them down five weeks ago," Ladd said.
"You talk about a crime, 300 to 400 people down here in the small towns of Arizona had a good job, we've got material laying on the ground, we got a batch plant ready to make concrete but it’s been idle for five weeks."
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A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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