Illegal Immigration: Rick Perry Calls The Border A ‘Disaster Area’

Illegal immigration on the Mexican border is overwhelming the system and turning boundaries in the southern states into a “disaster area” according to Texas Governor Rick Perry. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, thousands of illegal immigrant children have been pouring across the border from Central American and being housed in cramped conditions in government-run facilities.

To date, nearly 50,000 mothers with children, teenagers, and even toddlers have been apprehended crossing into America illegally. The surge of illegal immigrants wandering into the United States has reportedly increased 92 percent since 2013. Some lawmakers have deemed the situation a national security matter and blame President Obama’s “open borders” Dream Act plan for the sudden influx of illegal immigrants. Immigration activists largely maintain that the thousands of people pouring across the border is a humanitarian crisis and stems from poverty and unrest in Mexico and Central America. Opponents have countered that argument by noting that poverty and social unrest has plagued the region for decades but only now, have thousands of people per day walked onto U.S. soil and surrendered themselves.

According to interviews with U.S. Border Security staffers by Fox News, some of the illegal immigrants have stated that they simply paid $100 to for a jet ski to ride across the water to get to Texas. Others being held in various containment facilities stated that they paid about $4,000 to “coyotes” to guide them along the journey and paid bribes to Mexican law enforcement officers to get through the country and to the United States.

When asked for his thought on the illegal immigrant children converging upon the border daily, Governor Rick Perry had this to say to Sean Hannity:

“It is an absolute overflowing mess is what it is. And this is something we brought to the attention of the president over two years ago, back in 2012, when we saw this was a major issue. We flagged this. And we’re still waiting for a response not just from the president but from the administration. So it is a major problem. And 1,000 people a day is what we’re seeing apprehended at the current rate.

I mean, it’s just an impossible figure to really get your hands around. We’ve got an amazing amount of resources on the border.

It’s not the state’s responsibility to be dealing with this issue. We’re doing our part to make sure we can keep our citizens as safe as we can. But the federal government is just absolutely failing. We either have an incredibly inept administration or they’re in on this somehow. I hate to be conspiratorial, but how do you move that many people from Central America across Mexico and into the United States without there being a fairly coordinated effort?”

Governor Perry went on to note concerns related to protecting Texas citizens in case of an emergency. Perry stated that the region is in the midst of hurricane season and if a weather disaster happens and the coastal areas must be evacuated, he has nowhere to house constituents. “I don’t have any place to go because the facilities we have historically had available to house our citizens in the United States are full of these individuals now who are coming in from Mexico. There is a clear concept, if you will, from this administration, there’s clear effort to allow these individuals to come in. So the administration is not serious about border security. We have known that for a long time. Congress refuses to deal with the issue. And the American people are going to demand that we secure this border,” Perry added.

The Texas governor said taxpayers in his state have forked over $500 million to address border security issues and have received nothing in return. Some immigration activists have said that is impossible to simply return the children and teenagers to their home because many do not know where they are from and federal laws pertaining to the deportation of minors. Some open borders opponents have suggested turning the illegal immigrant children over to their country’s embassy in the United States and mandating officials there feed, house, and give medical care to the thousands who have arrived in recent weeks.

What do you think should be done to secure the border and to handle the illegal immigration problem?

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