GOP Candidates Prioritize Southern Border Over Ukraine

Ending the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border should be more of a priority than assisting Ukraine in its war against Russia, several Republican candidates said during Wednesday night’s Republican debate.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, currently a distant second to front-running former President Donald Trump, said he would declare the southern border crisis “a national emergency.”

“I’m not going to send troops to Ukraine, but I am going to send them to our southern border,” DeSantis said. “When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that’s going to be the last thing they do. We’re going to use force and we’re going to leave them stone-cold dead.”

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said he also would not send aid to Ukraine.

“I would not and I think that this is disastrous that we’re protecting against an invasion across somebody else’s border when we should use those same military resources to prevent across the invasion of our own southern border here in the United States of America,” Ramaswamy said.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who said he recently visited Yuma, Arizona, said the migrant crisis is “the most pressing need of the American people from a national security standpoint.”

“It has led to the death of 70,000 Americans because of fentanyl, plus six million illegal crossings since President Biden has taken office and 200 people on our national security watch list have been caught at our border,” Scott said.

Former President Mike Pence said the Biden administration ruined the efforts for the Trump administration.

“We secured the southern border of the United States of America and reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%,” Pence said. “When Joe Biden took over, he threw open the southern border of the United States and the wave of humanity, the wave of fentanyl that’s been eloquently described here is a wave of human tragedy across this country.”

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said Ukraine and the southern border both can be addressed.

“We have to be strong both in Ukraine and we can solve the southern border,” Burgum said. “Absolutely, we can do that because guess what? There’s only 19,855 authorized people for the border patrol, but they’re not all staff because the Biden administration doesn’t enforce law enforcement.

“But Biden administration wanted to put 87,000 people in the IRS as opposed to giving the money and the support we need to our own border patrol.”