Kennedy Reveals Border Policy

Launches Documentary ‘Midnight at the Border’

Fixing the border is one of the first things Kennedy vows to do once in the White House, the candidate announced late Thursday. Earlier in the day, in Beverly Hills, California, he premiered a documentary short film, Midnight at the Border, that exposes the horrific reality at the U.S.’s southern border.

“After visiting the border, I've come to understand that the open border policy is just a way of funding a multibillion-dollar drug and human trafficking operation for the Mexican drug cartels,” Kennedy said. “When I'm President, I will secure the border which will end the cartels, the drug trafficking autonomy.” 

He added, “I will build wide doors for those who wish to enter legally so that the United States can continue to be a beacon to a world where diversity and culture make us great.”

In stark contrast to Trump, who famously called for a massive wall, Kennedy thinks that the border doesn’t need a 2,200-mile wall between Brownsville and San Diego. “Our policy will be first, to get the border under control,” he said. “Second, to work with other countries to stem the tide of migrants. Third, to fully fund and prioritize the administrative infrastructure for lawful, orderly immigration to this country.”

Kennedy will control the border with technology like motion sensors, cameras, lights, and ample well-trained personnel. Trying to cross the border by stealth will become a losing proposition. “We can protect our borders, we have the technological capacity to do that. We need the political willpower to do that.”

As detailed in Midnight at the Border, Kennedy visited the Arizona/California border with Mexico in early June. He met with local law enforcement, border patrol, farmers, health professionals, government officials, aid workers, community members and the migrants themselves. 

Kennedy traveled to the border to better understand what is happening on the ground and what can be done to solve the problems. 

“This has been an extraordinary trip for me because I witnessed this dystopian nightmare of this uncontrolled flow of desperate humanity crossing the border and converging here because of misbegotten policies by high leadership of the United States and landing in Yuma, Arizona,” he said. 

At a press conference for the film’s premiere, Kennedy added, “A country cannot exist if it can't secure its borders. Everybody is getting hurt by this policy. The good news is that this is solvable, we can stop this.”

You can watch the full documentary, here:

In the film, Kennedy travels to Yuma, Arizona and is welcomed by Arizona District 2’s Supervisor, Jonathan Lines. As many as two thousand people per day cross the border in the region.

“You and Senator Kelly are the only Democrats who have actually come to the border, and I appreciate you being here,” Lines tells Kennedy as he arrives at the border at one in the morning. 

Kennedy expected most people crossing the border came from Central America. Instead, he found people from all over the world — from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Russia, China, Ukraine and Iraq. According to Lines, a record number of Africans are also now crossing the border.

“Of all these people, only one of them said that they are here for asylum,” Kennedy explains in the documentary, after speaking to migrants. “The rest are here looking for work, better lives.”

At his press conference for the documentary, Kennedy said, “This week, the New York Times had an article that said 90,000 immigrants had landed in New York on these giant floats. Seven million immigrants over the past three years have come across illegally.” He continued, “Compare that to 3.1 million who entered legally during that period. Twice the amount of immigration is coming across illegally.”

Kennedy said that members of the Democratic party have adopted humanitarian policies to welcome all the immigrants, to reverse the cruelty of the Trump era. 

But the problem is what happens to these immigrants when they cross the border. “We talked to Peruvian families,” Kennedy said. “Their life savings were removed from them just before they crossed the border. And then what happens to them when they come into this country? They are still liable for labor exploitation. They are now illegal; there is no way that they can legally work in this country. They cannot support themselves. They cannot pay taxes. We're creating this understory of exploitable poor, that will impact the price of labor and the wages of labor for every working American.”

Kennedy emphasizes that the U.S. has to change its relationship with some of the countries south of the border, to bring them into a partnership. 

If elected president, he said he would initiate a new kind of Good Neighbor policy. “The U.S. will end its military adventurism and stop supporting despotic governments, juntas, coups, death squads, and repressive regimes that persecute and impoverish their own people,” he said. “We will stop opposing governments that seek land reform, labor reform, and social welfare for their people.”

Furthermore, Kennedy noted that many immigrants can simply walk over the border and claim asylum. There are 1.6 million immigrants living in the U.S. while they await their asylum hearing. Fewer than 15 percent will be approved. Kennedy said he would appoint hundreds more judges to deal with this backlog, and to ensure that newly arriving immigrants get a hearing before being admitted to the U.S. “We need the personnel, we need to do that for our country,” he said. 

In addition, he will work with the Mexican government to stem the flow of transit migration through Mexico. 

The construction of the wall started during the Trump administration and was entirely halted during the Biden administration. There’s a gap in the wall in Yuma.

Kennedy said open border policies allow people to enter the U.S. the wrong way, illegally, which is exploiting the migrants and giving an advantage to Mexican cartels. The cartels exploit migrants at the southern border through various means, including human trafficking, smuggling, and extortion. They take advantage of vulnerable migrants seeking a better life, subjecting them to dangerous and often life-threatening conditions, while demanding exorbitant fees for their services and using violence to maintain control over their operations.

The documentary details horrific scenes in proximity to the border, the “rape tree,” where the cartel collects its claims from women and children before allowing them to cross the border.

“Mexican drug cartels are making billions of dollars controlling U.S. immigration policy,” Kennedy said. “All of the carefully constructed immigration policy that we have in our country is meaningless because drug cartels are deciding who gets in and who doesn’t.”