NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, who opened a criminal investigation this week into migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard, said Tuesday that the solution to the ongoing migrant crisis is to open more legal avenues for people to come to the United States.
“At some point, you have to accept that this is happening to some extent. I would say, look, you have people who want to work … and you have a shortage of workers,” he told CNN on Tuesday.
“Hire these people. Give them the opportunity to work legally and then make sure the employers who hire them do it the right way and pay them right. And here’s the catch: tax them on it.”
Salazar, a Democrat, said some migrants should be turned away if the vetting process finds they have a “criminal” or “terrorist” past.
“But the people who just want to do a hard day’s work for hard pay — bring them in and let’s put them to work,” he told CNN. He noted that migrants could be hired to reduce wait times at restaurants in San Antonio, Texas, the county seat of Bexar County and a major tourist destination because of the Alamo and the Riverwalk.
Encounters with migrants at the southern border have reached record levels, with more than two million so far this fiscal year, including 203,598 encounters last month alone.
BIDEN, QUESTIONED ABOUT MIGRANT VOLUME, SAYS ‘NOT RATIONAL’ TO ‘SEND’ THEM TO VENEZUELA, CUBA, NICARAGUA
The Border Patrol apprehended 78 individuals whose names appeared in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database in fiscal year 2022, three more than in the past five years combined.
Salazar opened a criminal investigation this week into two flights of 48 migrants who he says were “lured” by the Migrant Resource Center in San Antonio and boarded a plane to Martha’s Vineyard “under false pretenses.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose administration organized the flights, denied the migrants had been promised jobs and said they were given “multiple” opportunities to decline the trip.
Democrats sharply criticized last week’s flights and busing of thousands of migrants by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
DELAWARE, WHITE HOUSE PREPARING FOR POTENTIAL FLIGHT OF MIGRANTS TO ARRIVE NEAR BIDEN’S HOME
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., echoed Salazar’s comments Tuesday, saying if “we had legal procedures, people would use those legal procedures.”
“We’ve continued to increase the money at the border, but we haven’t done that by also fixing the legal immigration system and giving people the ability and ways to come here legally,” Jayapal told CNN.
Lines of migrants cross Eagle Pass, Texas on September 16, 2022 (Fox News)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
DeSantis dismissed the criticism Tuesday, saying Florida simply “offered transportation to sanctuary jurisdictions.”
“I haven’t heard anything about all the people that Biden has told [migrants] they can just walk in — and they leave, they are abused by the cartels. They drown in the Rio Grande. You had 50 that died in some shack in Texas. I heard no outrage about any of that,” DeSantis said.
Paul Best is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Paul.best@fox.com and on Twitter: @KincaidBest.
Add Comment