(NewsNation) — The current challenges at the U.S.-Mexico border can be traced back to former President Donald Trump, according to one of his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination.
“The Trump administration is what actually started this process of treating everybody who comes through our country as an asylum seeker,” Will Hurd, a former congressman for Texas and Republican White House hopeful, told “NewsNation Now” on Monday.
Hurd, who’s positioned himself as a moderate, “common sense” Republican, acknowledged that the asylum situation has grown “significantly worse” under President Joe Biden.
“When it comes to not treating everybody as an asylum seeker, that doesn’t require congressional action, that requires only the president to dictate that the Department of Homeland Security should stop that process,” Hurd said.
The total number of people who were granted asylum in the U.S. increased during Trump’s time in office from 2016 to 2019 before plummeting during the pandemic, according to DHS data.
But the president doesn’t have unilateral authority to turn away asylum seekers, as evidenced by the numerous Trump-era border policies that faced challenges in the courts.
Some of those rules were specifically intended to stem the influx of asylum claims but were eventually overturned for violating immigration law.
In 2018, for example, the Trump administration issued a policy that made asylum seekers ineligible if they attempted to cross the border between ports of entry. That was later struck down by a federal judge.
Annual refugee admissions, which are set by the president, fell under Trump.
The backlog of asylum cases pending in U.S. immigration courts has risen since Biden took office and currently sits at more than 980,000, the most on record.
In addition to asylum reforms, Hurd, who is a former CIA officer, said he would direct national intelligence agencies to work more closely with border patrol to counter Mexican drug cartels.
Hurd is considered a longshot for the GOP nomination and did not qualify for the first Republican presidential debate in August.
The Republican National Committee has not yet released the official list of candidates slated to take to the stage in the second debate Wednesday. In order to qualify, candidates must receive 3 percent support in two national polls or in one national poll and in two polls of early voting states. They also have to have at least 50,000 unique donors.
Hurd said he reached 50,000 donors as of Monday afternoon.
You can watch the full interview with Will Hurd in the player above.