Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently gave a talk to the annual convention of the National Sheriff’s Association in which he shared his views on the border, and he sounded very, well, Trump-ish.
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In a Q&A at the annual convention of the National Sheriffs’ Association on Monday, Kennedy ripped President Joe Biden’s open border agenda and said it is time to bring back many of the border-closing policies used by former President Donald Trump.
He said, for example, that a border wall should be erected, 2,600 more agents should be hired, 300 immigration judges should set up shop at the border, and the “Remain in Mexico” policy should be restored.
“I’m going to seal the border,” said Kennedy, who is running a distant third in the presidential race led by Trump and Biden.
“It’s easily solvable,” added Kennedy, who did not qualify for Thursday’s presidential debate .
Kennedy, who has visited the border with the sheriffs, said that fencing is needed in rural areas of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California but that the country does not need the whole 2,200-mile border fenced. “You need a fence, you need obstacles” in the areas migrants typically cross, he said.
It may not be easily solvable, and it won’t be cheap—but it is solvable, it is doable, and it must be done. In some circles, this would be seen as belaboring the obvious, but all too often these days, what should be obvious to all isn’t to the people who have the responsibility to do something. This actually is one of the few legitimate roles of the federal government, and the Biden administration is failing, badly; RFK Jr. plainly sees that.
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Kennedy continues:
“No nation can survive with an open border,” Kennedy told the Oklahoma convention. “I strongly believe that we should have a humane immigration policy that reflects the compassion of our country and the values of our country and the fact that we are all immigrants. But it has to be legal immigration.”
That last sentence is key.
We spend so much time talking about illegal immigration that we sometimes neglect legal immigration. Legal immigration doesn’t have to be a wide-open door, either, but many people would love to come to America, people who, like many of our ancestors, are seeking not a handout but liberty and opportunity. People with valuable skills, knowledge, and abilities, or just a burning desire to better themselves, to take advantage of the freedoms and opportunities that, despite the best efforts of leftists, America still offers. We should encourage those people; people like them, like our ancestors, built this country, and we could use more like them.
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But we cannot survive this calamity, this wide-open border, this horrendous situation not only on the southern border but also on the northern one. A nation without borders, as Mr. Kennedy points out, is no nation at all.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is no conservative. We can find many of his policy positions we might disagree with. But on this topic, he’s dead right, and it’s no coincidence that he’s sounding a lot like Donald Trump on this issue – because, loathe as the left is to admit it, on illegal immigration, Trump is right.