On Wednesday's Cuomo Prime Time, host Chris Cuomo cited a clip of Customs and Border commissioner Kevin McAleenan to bolster the CNN's host's claim that the "real problem" on the border is the scarcity of resources to take care of the larger numbers of children and families crossing into the U.S., but Cuomo omitted the part of the speech in which the CBP commissioner stressed the need to reform the laws that are enticing those who are not legitimate asylum seekers to come to the U.S. in the first place because they know it will be difficult to deport them quickly.
While showing footage of large numbers of illegal immigrants in El Paso, Texas, Cuomo began the show's "Closing Argument" segment:
This is El Paso, Texas. There is a crisis on the border. It's not hordes of rapists and murderers and drug mules marauding the empty spaces where a wall should be. It is kids -- as many as 40,000 just this month -- many alone, others with families, part of a mass of humanity, 100,000 strong, just by the end of this month.
He then moved to undermining calls for a border wall and claiming that the "heart of the solution has been ignored" as he continued:
Not a wall away from a solution. The President didn't tell you about the real problem because he was selling you on fear of bad hombres and an easy fix. Walls help -- I've never argued otherwise. But they're only part of the solution. The heart of the solution has been ignored, and now we have a real crisis as a result.
He noted that record numbers of immigrants are being apprehended at the border, and complained that border personnel are not being given "what they need" by the President: "No one has given them what they need. An emergency was declared, and yet it only addressed the President's need for a win, not the needs of the men and women who keep us safe. That is the truth and the reality."
Cuomo then played a 15-second clip of Commissioner McAleenan from an 18-minute speech he gave earlier in the day, which has been posted by CPB in both video and transcript form. Here was McAleenan: "This stark and increasing shift to more vulnerable populations combined with overwhelming numbers and inadequate capacity to detain families and children at ICE and Health and Human Services respectively, is creating a humanitarian crisis."
The CNN host tried to undermine President Trump as Cuomo reacted:
That's Trump's guy. Did you hear "murderers," "rapists," "cantaloupe-calved drug mules"? No.This is the reality the President did not sell you -- not scary enough to make you feel like walling yourself off from it. He wanted anger, not compssion. "The kids are coming and we need to wall them off!" Not the same sell, right? These days, harshness has replaced our humanity, and now we have to face reality.
Near the end of his four-minute commentary, he finally divulged his priority for what is needed most on the border as being "staff, accommodations, case workers, medical staff, judges."
But he ignored one of the critical portions of McAleenan's speech in which he called for Congress to change the law to make it easier for CBP to deal with detainees and cut the incentives for so many making the long journey:
The increase in family units is a direct response to the vulnerabilities in our legal framework where migrants and smugglers know that they will be released and allowed to stay in the U.S. indefinitely, pending immigration proceedings that could be many years out. This is due to court orders that undermine the integrity of our immigration system.
He then called on Congress to repair the laws that have exacerbated the border problems. And, in spite of Cuomo suggesting crime was not an issue, the CBP commissioner also alluded to the problems of criminals taking advantage of the chaotic situation.
