Katko on Fox News: A Posture of Unwavering Resilience Needed in Current Threat Environment

WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. John Katko (R-NY), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, joined Dana Perino on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom to discuss the migrant caravan headed to the United States that may be the largest in history and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) bulletin that warns of a “heightened threat environment” in the months ahead.

Watch his full interview here.

ISSUES AT THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS: “This administration does not have the ability to even operate on a decent foreign policy field. This is the Western hemisphere. This is the Americas. We should be in lock step with our neighbors, from the north to the south. When our neighbor to the south doesn’t even go to the meeting because they’re so disenchanted with our leader, that says something. We have a Secretary of State and a State Department that has to be able to smooth out these rough edges. Mexico has a lot of interest with us. The fact that they can’t do that is a very troubling sign, especially with what’s going on at our border.”

POTENTIALLY THE LARGEST EVER CARAVAN HEADED TO THE U.S.: “Mexico is becoming complicit to some extent. A lot of people that are in that caravan, if not all of them, will eventually get a work visa from Mexico. Mexico is saying they are doing this because they want to incentivize the migrants to stay in Mexico. But what it does is give them status in Mexico which makes it easier for them to come to our southern border. We should be calling the Mexican President on that. We don’t have enough of a relationship to even get him to come to a meeting, we’re not going to be able to get to the bottom of fundamental problems like that.”

BIDEN ADMIN IS DEFINED BY CRISIS: “[T]he United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and all these places help build up these economies and help the people that are struggling in these economies. We have a very strong economic tie to Mexico. The fact that we can’t iron out these details shows that ineptitude of this administration yet again. It’s another crisis that they’ve created, that they’re not able to solve. This administration is loaded with these types of crises and the southern border is not going away.”

DHS BULLETIN WARNING OF “HEIGHTENED THREAT ENVIRONMENT:” “The bottom line is the threat environment has been metastasized and the internet is kind of allowing it to do so. Bad actors on the internet that are applauding what happened in Buffalo and Uvalde, and you’ve got foreign actors that are also trying to foment discontent with the United States. That heightens the threat environment and anything that happens this summer could end up being a touch stone for more violence. We need to have unwavering resilience with respect to all of this. We need to make sure that federal, state, and local are working together. Now is not the time to vilify law enforcement. Now is the time to embrace law enforcement and help them get all the tools they need to do their job.”

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