Newt Gingrich: Dems to blame for migrant drowning deaths at border

The Democrats have only themselves to blame for the death of a migrant and his child at the border, Newt Gingrich said Wednesday.

“You have a man and his daughter dying in the river because the Democrats in Congress refuse to fix the law, refuse to control the border, refuse to pass humanitarian aid,” Gingrich told Fox News’ America’s Newsroom.

Immigration hypocrites

Months after Democrats claimed that the border crisis was “manufactured,” a photo of an immigrant man who drowned with his toddler while crossing the Rio Grande made the media rounds last week. The image punctuated the grim toll of a crisis that the left has long refused to acknowledge, let alone work with President Trump to fix.

Gingrich told Fox’s Bill Hemmer that the Democrats are hypocrites for blaming Trump for worsening conditions — while doing nothing to address America’s broken immigration system. The Republican pointed to the Democrats’ rejection of a $4.6 billion humanitarian aid bill for migrants last week. The bill passed 305-102, over the objections of 95 Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who wanted to pass a more progressive aid bill that would also have blocked money for border enforcement.

With an influx of 100,000 migrants flooding the border each month, the Democrats are perpetuating the crisis by refusing to engage on asylum reform or take action on securing the border, Gingrich said. Echoing President Trump’s complaints about “catch and release,” Gingrich said that Central American migrants are attracted to come to America because they’ve been told by Democrats that “Americans are so stupid” that the United States won’t enforce the law, and therefore migrants can expect to settle in the country and be taken care of.

“Now people like AOC create the disaster, refuse to fix it, vote against funding to help people, then go down there and attack the people who are saying to her we don’t have enough money, we don’t have enough facilities.”

Watch below:

Vicious dishonesty from AOC

Gingrich went on to say that Ocasio-Cortez, who has repeatedly compared detention centers to concentration camps, is a “viciously dishonest” person.  The Democrat has been accused by immigration officials of pulling a political “stunt” after visiting an El Paso border facility on Monday and claiming, without evidence, that migrants were forced to drink from toilet bowls.

“I just think her attitude and approach — I use these words — she is a viciously dishonest person. You have a man and daughter dying in the river because the Democrats in Congress refuse to fix the law, refuse to  control the border, refuse to pass humanitarian aid,” he said. “It is truly despicable to watch people like this operate and I think she should be ashamed over it. I think people should say this is not tolerable. That’s not the kind of person that the news media should be covering, because she is so dishonest.”

Speaking of viciously dishonest, AOC was criticized over recently published photos that the Democrat took near a migrant detention center last year. Critics said that the photos, which showed AOC bent double with anguish near a fence with no migrants in sight, appeared to be staged.

Republican Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) similarly blasted the “hypocrisy” of AOC’s criticism of conditions in detention centers, given her vote against humanitarian aid.

“The Department of Homeland Security is out of money, and the congresswoman knows that. She says the conditions are inhumane. But yet when we send a bill over to her to vote to improve those conditions, she voted no. Her hypocrisy is breathtaking,” he said.

Refusal to help

Frankly, what would Democrats have the Trump administration do? Illegal immigration reached a 13-year high in May, with 144,000 apprehended at the border. Federal immigration officials are strapped for cash. Meanwhile, Democrats seem to maintain that the answer is just to do nothing about the asylum loopholes and the porous border that are encouraging this influx.

Immigration authorities need more resources to deal with this crisis, but Democrats like AOC have made much-needed funding conditional on keeping the border open, thereby multiplying the problem. Not only are they refusing to fix the crisis, they are in fact making it worse.

This is not sustainable. It’s clear that the real problem Democrats have is with migrants being detained at all. They’d rather them come in, whether illegally or through a contrived “aslyum” claim and then have the American people pay for their healthcare.

If they want to get Trump re-elected, the Democrats could do no better than to carry on like this.