Former senior Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli said Monday that President-elect Trump “using the military” will help drive migrant numbers at the border “down into the dirt.”
Cuccinelli told NewsNation’s Blake Burman in an interview on “The Hill” that he believes early next year, “you will see our military used between legal ports of entry, especially on the southern border, to finally gain control of that border” adding that “all immigration, all passage of any kind, will pass through legal ports of entry only.”
Burman said Cuccinelli’s words about all immigration and all passage of any kind moving through legal ports of entry “sounds aspirational,” asking him if he actually believes “that can happen.”
In his response, Cuccinelli said Burman was “right” and that “it’ll never be 100 percent, but it doesn’t need to be to drive the numbers coming to the border down into the dirt,” adding that Trump will “do that using the military between the legal ports of entry.”
Trump has previously discussed the military being used on the “enemy from within,” at the border and possibly versus cartels in Mexico. The president-elect’s platform, known as Agenda 47, called for “moving thousands of troops currently stationed overseas” to the southern border.
“If you’re sitting in, pick a country in Central or South America, ‘cause they still have the biggest numbers coming into the United States, and you’re asking yourself the question, ‘Am I gonna spend my life savings on some coyote to get me into the United States, when what I see happening at the border is a complete blockage?’” Cuccinelli said on “The Hill.”
“The answer to that is no,” he added.
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