2024 Democrat RFK Jr. stunned during border visit: ‘Not a good thing for our country’
Anna Giaritelli
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Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. berated President Joe Biden and members of his party for the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border, as millions cross and “most of them are never seen or heard from again.”
During a visit to the Yuma, Arizona, border on Tuesday, Kennedy saw firsthand during an overnight tour how noncitizens crossed a canal and walked past the border wall by going in between the gaps in the Trump-era barrier and either surrendered to Border Patrol or attempted to get away.
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“This is a humanitarian crisis because of the understanding across the globe that we now have an open border here,” Kennedy said in a video posted to Twitter. “There are people being drawn here. They’re being abused. There’s all kinds of just horrific, terrible, terrible stories, and this is not a good thing for our country. This is not a good thing for these people. It is unsustainable.”
Kennedy said he spoke with immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, and West Africa.
“The stories that we heard from these people are absolutely heartbreaking,” he said.
Those on-site were loaded onto large buses and taken to a regional Border Patrol facility to be processed.
“After four or five days, they’re released on their own recognizance into our country, and most of them are never seen or heard from again,” Kennedy said.
Illegal immigrants who are not immediately removed from the country may be released into the interior of the United States to await removal proceedings in immigration court years down the road. Some immigrants are given notices to appear in court, while others are released through a process known as parole, which relies on the immigrant to follow up with immigration authorities.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, said in an interview he was seriously concerned with the impact the constant influx of illegal immigrants has had on farmers in the region. The Yuma area supplies 90% of all green leafy vegetables in the U.S. between November and April, but its supply could be compromised because of the foot traffic through fields and irrigation systems.
In addition, Kennedy said some people have urinated and defecated in the canals, which had a negative impact on the agricultural community.
“Last year, one of their neighbors had to plow under 88 acres of broccoli and personally absorb the $10K per acre cost after migrants tainted irrigation water,” Kennedy said in an interview published by the Daily Mail.
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Yuma has been one of the top spots for illegal immigrant arrests across the southern border over the past five years. Border Patrol in this southwestern part of Arizona apprehended more than 13,000 people in April, down from the highest month of more than 34,000 apprehensions in May 2022, according to publicly available federal data.
Kennedy is polling at 17% in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary in the RealClearPolitics averages of polls, behind Biden at 60% and ahead of Marianne Williamson at 7%.