WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) commented on his recent trip to the U.S.-Mexico border during an appearance on Fox Business’ ‘The Evening Edit’ today.

The television interview comes after the senator published an article on FoxNews.com about the border visit.

Excerpts of the interview are below and video can be found here.

“What’s so sad about this, what’s depressing about this, is it didn't have to happen. After the 2018-2019 surge, President Trump got it under control. He put in place the Migrant Protection Program, the Return to Mexico policy, entered into agreements with Mexico and other Central American countries, and we pretty well stopped the flow of unaccompanied children and migrant families that were exploiting our very generous asylum laws. But then President Biden, even though his transition team asked the Trump administration, ‘What can we do to prevent a border crisis?’ and they told them keep those policies in place. Basically, the first thing that President Biden did is he just dismantled all those programs. So this was not only predictable, it was predicted, and it’s just sad.”

[On former President Trump’s plans to visit the border]

“Anybody that’s willing to go to the border that can bring press with them so we can highlight the depredations that are occurring right now is welcome news. The human trafficking element of this has never really been fully reported on. It was not reported on in 2014 or 2018 or now currently. I can't even describe some of the things on air, some of the depredations. They’re just horrific.”

“The border is 100 percent under control on the Mexican side. You don't cross without paying the traffickers six to $10,000 per person. These people don't have that money. How do you think they pay that off? They do it in the sex trade. They do it in other involuntary servitude. The depredations, again, were predicted and predictable and President Biden, Kamala Harris, just went forward with this horrible policy anyway.”

“Two Saturdays ago, the word came down from the Biden administration and CBP: Don't even issue notices to appear, that takes too much time. So now these people are entering this country illegally. They're being let into the interior of America. They have no legal obligation to appear before a court to have their asylum claim made. This is as close to complete open borders as anybody could possibly imagine.”

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