At a Senate Republican press briefing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed Biden Administration border policies, and claimed Karine Jean-Pierre has lied about it.
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00:00 For the past decade, John Cornyn and I have regularly taken our colleagues down to the
00:07 southern border because you can't really understand what's happening there until you see it firsthand
00:11 with your own eyes.
00:13 We just got back from the border Thursday and Friday of last week.
00:16 We flew out Thursday afternoon.
00:19 We arrived in the Rio Grande Valley Thursday night.
00:21 And the first thing five of us, five senators, did is we went to the midnight muster of the
00:26 Border Patrol agents.
00:28 And we went there principally to tell those agents thank you.
00:31 Those men and women, they risk their lives every night dealing with very dangerous human
00:38 traffickers, drug traffickers, and they are frustrated beyond belief.
00:44 They're frustrated because they risk their lives catching dangerous people and they turn
00:48 around and their political superiors just let them go.
00:52 And the next day they go back and catch the same people all over again.
00:56 So we wanted to say thank you to them.
00:58 We also wanted to listen to them.
00:59 We sat there and just spent some time asking what do we need to know.
01:02 One of the things they told us about is the Biden administration just issued new guidance
01:07 in the past year on pursuit of illegal aliens who are fleeing.
01:12 And as they said, really what it should be called is guidance on non-pursuit.
01:18 And that the Biden administration has prohibited Border Patrol agents from chasing any traffickers
01:23 who are fleeing.
01:25 If there's anything about the flight that could endanger human safety, what does that
01:32 mean?
01:33 That means, for example, if there are more people in a vehicle than there are seatbelts,
01:38 the Border Patrol is not allowed to pursue.
01:40 And they said regularly they'll be coming up on a car filled with illegal immigrants
01:46 and the traffickers will tell everyone sit up so it's obvious there are four people in
01:49 the back seat or five people in the back seat and only three seatbelts.
01:53 Under the Biden administration's rules, they have to discontinue the pursuit and say, go
01:57 on, keep carrying your fentanyl, keep trafficking people because we're not going to pursue you.
02:03 They said now routinely as soon as they see a Border Patrol agent trying to pull them
02:06 over, they run a stop sign, they run a red light, they violate a traffic law.
02:11 That of course endangers people's safety, but they know under the new guidance, the
02:14 instant they run a stop sign, the Border Patrol is ordered to say, nope, never mind, we can't
02:19 pursue you.
02:21 This is an administration that doesn't want to secure the border.
02:23 They want this crisis.
02:24 Those 8 million people, the only thing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Senate Democrats
02:30 want is 8 million to become 10, to become 12, to become 20 million.
02:36 After midnight muster, we went out on midnight patrol with the Border Patrol agents.
02:40 This is something I've done many times.
02:44 Every time you're out on midnight patrol, within minutes you encounter groups of illegal
02:49 aliens.
02:51 I want to remind you all, this is an experienced group of Capitol Hill reporters.
02:56 You know that Corrine Jean-Pierre stood at the White House podium and said, people are
03:00 not just walking across the border, it's simply not happening.
03:04 Now there's a technical legal term for what she was saying there.
03:08 That's called a lie.
03:10 It's not an opinion, it's not one side said or the other side said, it's a flat-out lie.
03:16 As I said in response at the time, Corrine, you are welcome to come with us any time you
03:20 like.
03:22 Pick any hour of the day, we'll go out for an hour and I promise you we'll encounter
03:25 a group of illegal aliens.
03:29 But you know why she lies?
03:31 Because she's counting on the reporters not to write a story today, the spokesperson for
03:35 the President of the United States lied to the American people standing in the White
03:39 House with a White House seal and did it at the direction of the President of the United
03:42 States.
03:46 The group we encountered was about 20 or 25 people.
03:52 Mostly women and children.
03:55 And we spent about a half hour talking with that group, asking them questions.
03:59 At first they were apprehensive, but we asked them, we said, how many of you all believe
04:03 you're going to be able to stay?
04:04 Every one of them, absolutely, oh, we know once we get here, we can stay.
04:08 You want to know why there's a crisis?
04:10 Because every one of them knows once they get here, Joe Biden will let them go.
04:17 This group, I wish every one of you in this room had been there to see this group.
04:24 There was one little girl, she was 13 years old.
04:28 She was traveling as an unaccompanied minor.
04:30 She had no family with her at all.
04:34 We asked her, where are you going?
04:37 She said she's going to see her tÃo.
04:39 TÃo is Spanish for uncle.
04:43 Another little boy there was 15.
04:45 Another girl was 16.
04:46 They were unaccompanied as well.
04:49 They were also going to see their tÃos.
04:52 There were lots of tÃos that they were heading to.
04:56 We asked the 13-year-old, does your tÃo know you're coming?
04:58 No, haven't spoken to him.
05:01 I just have a number of some man I'm supposed to call.
05:06 There was a reporter who was with us from Fox News who said, here, do you want to use
05:10 my cell phone?
05:11 Do you want to call your tÃo right now?
05:12 She said, no, no.
05:16 It was obvious this was not her uncle she was calling.
05:21 The most disturbing, John Barrasso referenced.
05:27 There was a 10-year-old girl with a grown man who was about 35 years old.
05:31 He claimed to be her father.
05:36 This girl was terrified.
05:38 He had his arm around her, but it wasn't a fatherly hug.
05:44 It was more holding her in place.
05:48 We asked her about her mother, and she just looked terrified at the dad.
05:54 And he answered, oh, no, no, she stayed back.
05:58 We know under the Trump administration, when they DNA tested grown men with children, about
06:07 30% of them were not related to the kids.
06:11 That's because you get preferential treatment if you arrive as a family unit, 30%.
06:18 What did Joe Biden do when he came into office?
06:20 One of the very first things he did was end the DNA testing.
06:25 I have to tell you, standing there that night with those Border Patrol agents, it was sick
06:30 watching that little girl.
06:31 That man was not her father.
06:34 And there was nothing the agents could do.
06:40 The cartels are literally renting children to grown men.
06:46 And we were looking at children that were in all likelihood in the process of being
06:52 sex trafficked.
06:55 Those teenage girls faced a high likelihood of being headed into forced prostitution.
07:03 What is happening is horrific.
07:06 It is cruel.
07:07 It is inhumane.
07:08 I want to encourage every reporter here, go down and see for yourself.
07:12 Go look in the eyes of a little girl.
07:14 We asked the kids, how many of y'all faced violence and abuse on the trip?
07:21 Every one of them, they looked down, they were horrified.
07:26 Some of y'all may remember I asked Alejandro Mayorkas about the colored wristbands.
07:31 I put up a poster in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
07:33 He said he had no idea what they were.
07:34 He didn't know.
07:37 That answer shocked me because just about every illegal alien wears those colored wristbands.
07:41 They're color-coded for how many thousands of dollars they owe the cartels.
07:45 You can find them along the banks of the Rio Grande.
07:47 I reached down and picked up several while I was there.
07:51 This administration doesn't care and those wristbands are modern-day leg irons.
07:57 It is utterly inhumane and unspeakable what Joe Biden and the Democrats are allowing to
08:04 happen, subjecting children to modern-day slavery.
08:12 This has got to end.