by Sharon Rondeau
(Feb. 24, 2024) — As the opening statement in an interview Friday on the eve of the South Carolina Republican primary with Fox News’s Lawrence Jones, 45th President and leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump said he believes the number of illegal aliens entering the country since Joe Biden took office will climb to “18 million” by the end of Biden’s current term.
Trump is hoping to defeat Biden in the general election on November 5, 2024.
A clip of the exchange between Trump and Jones can be viewed here.
On Sunday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz told Maria Bartiromo of “Sunday Morning Futures” that the current number of illegals having entered the United States since Biden took office is “10.4 million,” considerably higher than other estimates of 7-8 million.
In Saturday’s primary, which is the second in the nation after the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters will choose between Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
The state’s Democrat primary, which Biden won overwhelmingly over challengers Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips, was held on February 3.
According to Fox News, Biden is considering taking “executive action” on the nation’s border crisis which Trump claims Biden caused after reversing many of his border actions, with Biden claiming he was “eliminating bad policy.”
A Voice of America article issued February 2, 2021 additionally reported that “backers of the previous administration’s border initiatives said Biden’s orders will lead to chaos and lawlessness.”
More recently, Biden claimed he was unable to act on the border issue, instead urging Congress to pass an immigration-reform bill which failed in the Senate earlier this month.
The measure included funding for Ukraine and Israel and was supported by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Had the bill passed, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA4) said it would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber since it would not “come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created.”
Many Democrats claim the bipartisan Senate bill “allowing the president to effectively shut down the border if crossings reach a certain level” would have addressed the problem and should have been considered by the House.
Biden now reportedly believes any action he might take on curtailing the record-breaking number of illegal border-crossers “could be limited in scope.”