Dem Rep. Escobar Blames Trump for Border Crisis: The Messaging from the W.H. ‘Is Almost Inconsequential’

EXCERPT:

ESCOBAR: "You know, Alisyn, I also have been in facilities and met with families and children here in my district. The messaging that is being used by a lot of the human smuggling organizations this go-around is hope. But again, this is why context matters. In 2019, when we saw significant increase also in families and unaccompanied minors arriving at our front door, the message being used by criminal organizations and human smugglers was fear. What I was hearing from families back then was, 'We’re being told that Donald Trump is going to build a wall, and if we don’t come now, we’ll never have our opportunity. So to me, the messaging is almost inconsequential because regardless of who is in the White House, those organizations are running a business, basically preying on vulnerable populations, feeding them either truths, half-truths, lies, it doesn’t matter, and it’s never going to stop until we address the root causes and until we reinstate programs that worked and could help us address this in a humane way, which is what the Biden administration is working on doing."