2021. the "story" continues on monday. we will have another special for you. we are going to minnesota to cover the first days of the trial of derek chauvin in the george floyd trial. see you monday. good day, everybody. >> neil: we are at the border. ted cruz is leading a delication of republican senators who just returned from a boat tour of the rio grande river. they also visited the donna, texas, migrant facility and a mission in texas. let's go to that press conference. >> tested positive for covid-19. roughly 10% of the individuals held there are testing positive for covid-19. rates higher than the u.s. population and the biden administration is taking people who are testing positive for

covid-19 and locking them in cages side by side. this is inhumane. it's wrong and the direct consequence of policy decisions by the biden administration to stop building the wall and return to catch and release and end the stay in mexico policy. a number of us are releasing photographs and videos so the american people can see what is happening here. this needs to stop! it's a crisis. it's a tragedy and a man-made crisis. this was avoidable. this was preventible. regardless of your party republican or democrat, you could look at what is going on here and say enough is enough. this must stop! >> i want to thank them for making this trip available to us. it was informative and instructive and very scaberring. -- sobering and as ted said

preventible. this should not have happen. if we don't fern finish the job and secure the border you are inviting people into this country. the current administration was warned this would happen. they were told in advance you will have thousands of people flooding across the border. the thing most concerning with all due respect to our border patrol folks, they spend so much time just taking care of people who come here illegally they can't stop the bad people -- the drug smugglers and human traffickers. they are trying to people safe in these facilities, it's a sad day. we need a change in our policy. i am grateful for the border patrol for the tremendous job

they do. it's a thankless job even on a good day. there are not many good days when thousands are coming across the border. we appreciate their work. they are trying to keep our country safe and secure. we need to help them by putting good policies in place and getting away from the failed policies implemented by the biden administration that are leading to this crisis on our border. thanks. >> we learned from the border patrol that they were asked a long time before the inauguration of the new president, their advice on how to handle situations at the border. they were advised not to change the remain in mexico policy. they didn't take that advice. so we have a crisis at the border because this administration would not listen

to the people that had tens and tens of years of experience to the problems here at the border. well, this crisis is because this administration would not listen to good advice. it's become a national security problem a law enforcement problem, a humanitarian problem. a lot of other things as well. yet they want an immigration bill passed. how can you pass an immigration bill when you an open border? they want to accomplish anything on immigration and i want to help them, it would be secure the border. you have to stop the bleeding before you can take care of the problem. thank you. >> i am the senator from the

state the whim. -- wyoming want we wanted to thank the border patrol for the job they do every night. we went on midnight patrol with them. they told us their job got a lot harder on january 20th the day that joe biden became president of the united states. as we were with them last night in the darkness across the river, we could see the traffickers and the coyotes and smugglers with their bright lights as bright as that television light right there. they were taunting our border agents say you can't stop us now as a result of the policy of the biden administration. today we went to the donna facility. we saw young people crammed in like sardines. something one of us would want for any of our own children. we videoed what was happening to

share with the country and the world the biden administration censors tried to top us. yesterday president biden held a press conference. he said that the great majority of families who come here illegally are being sent back. that's not true and either he doesn't know it or won't admit it to the american people. the border patrol will tell you it's not true. the senators who are here today will tell you it's not true. the men and women in the field will tell you it's not true. it's time to let the press in to see what is happening and the tragedy that this administration brought on to our nation. >> mike from indiana. hundreds of miles away. we see this on our tv sets back home. there is no subsitute for being here. this was an unforced error on the part of the biden

administration. you look at what under pins it is the caustic political environment. if one side is doing it and it's going well the other side wants to undo it. in that moment i will never forget what this senator just talked about. to think you have the brazen statement when the border patrol is there at midnight that they are going to keep coming and they will get the best of us. that's a sad situation. i am hoping there is enough political will on the other side of the aisle to do what they should have done in the first place and that's not to try to fix something that wasn't broken and go back to what is working. you can it will just today ndaylight, helicopters, state trooper boats, border patrol, and there was something that just happened when we went up the river and back.

that's how tough it is. >> i am dan sullivan from the great state of alaska. i am thousands of miles from home. this is important to my state for a host of reasons. the number 1 thing i have taken out this trip and i want to thank ted cruz and john cornyn again, is the president of the united states and the vice-president of the united states need to do what we just did. they need to come down here. they need to listen and they need to learn. here's what i learned: we have an upside down border policy in america. what do i mean? we have open borders on the southern border. there is no doubt. the people coming in who are released immediately almost, they are not tested at all. open borders, no test itting for covid. for the southern border, for he

northern border we have closed borders. my state is facing an economic problem. people want to travel there even after being vaccinated and we have that border closed. what we need is the opposite. a closed border here for the time being and an open border on the northern border. that's what the president and vice-president will learn if they come down here like we did and learn from the people. >> ted and john, this is the most important trip i have ever taken. there are 18 senators here? because it's the biggest issue facing the country in many ways right now. what i have learned? if the trump administration did the opposite and it blew up in their face everybody would ask the trump administration what

did you and know when did you know it? i will help you here with your reporting. mr. hastings, a 2-star border patrol told us he briefed transition members of the biden administration as to what would happen if you do away with the remain in mexico policy and what would happen if you change the title 42 to allow unaccompanied children to come here and not be sent back home. everything they said would happen, happened. if you don't do it, i will do it. i am going to find out who he talked to and memorialize that conversation and hold them accountable. they knew. when they say this is a trump problem, they are lying. this is a problem of their own making. i learned that joe biden the president made the problem worse yesterday. this was a nightmare press conference.

he told everybody don't worry we have private facilities and we will build 5,000 more beds in texas. how did that play in central america? they will expand the number of people they can take. we call a family member and unite that family. this is uniting illegal immigration. we are complicit as a nation in human trafficking. there is a trail on our side of the border with markers placed by the federal government to see illegal immigrants where to go. we are transporting people who pay to get here with your taxpayer dollars. it's costing about $800 a day per child. if we don't change this and go back to the remain in mexico policy where they can't apply for asylum here and send

unaccompanied children back to their own country there will be 250,000 people more coming. the border patrol said there is no end to this. vice-president harris, this is your job to fix. i promise you will i will work with you but you can't understand your job unless you come here. the last thing we are going to do is introduce a resolution praising its men and women of the border patrol and the custom's department -- i have been to iraq and afghanistan 56 times. our soldiers served in tough conscience. conditions. what we are asking the men and women of the border patrol to do is inhumane. we owe this to them. the president said i won't apologize to anybody about my policies. mr. president you need to

apologize to these people for making their jobs impossible and most importantly you need to change. >> what i learned, the signs he is talking about. they call it the biden arrow showing illegal immigrants how to come into this country. i have been down to the border a number of times during multiple surgeries: -- surges. 2015, 2018 and 2019. in 2018 and 2019, the big issue was we didn't have the facilities. we were overwhelmed. we could not follow the law and have a release of unaccompanied children in 72 hours. it took 7 to 10 days. that was a big issue. how can we solve that problem? what i found out last night. that's not a problem right now because the biden administration set a goal for the border patrol to process and release people in an 8 hour time frame. 8 hours!

that's not even a speed bump. it's a go slow zone on a path to illegal entry into this country. it's facilitating untold inhumities. we had to slow down because there was a dead body in the water just upstream here. there is nothing humane about that treatment. nothing whatsoever. my final point is because vice-president harris served on my committee. i saw how she asked questions of federal law enforcement. the people we need to thank and thank their families for their service and sacrifice. she was never secured the border. instead she compare i.c.e. to the ku klux klan. that is a person president biden put in charge to solve this

problem. how can you do that when you rely on the brave men and women of the federal law enforcement you are putting in charge of the efforts, someone who compared your efforts to the ku klux klan? i don't get it. this is so sad coming down here. someone said what do you expect to see? i expected deju-vu. i did to a certain extent but saw something far, far worse. this is sad. this is depressing. this doesn't have to happen. this is self-inflicted wound on our nation. i just do not believe the biden administration can fix this unless they change stripes. this is sad. this is a tragedy. >> a word for what is happening at our border. it's insanity. every day thousands of migrants are racing it our border. they were not running away from border patrol officers.

they are runing to them. they know and their smugglers know they can game our system and be released into the country in a matter of days or hours and they will never have to go back to their home country. meanwhile the brave men and women of our border patrol who signed up to be law enforcement officers are social workers and baby-sitters and cafeteria workers. the madness needs to stop. there is only one way to top it. for joe biden to say do not leave your home. do not come to our country. if you do you will not get in. we will send you home. until joe biden says that, the madness will continue. hard working taxpayers will be forced to spend billion dollars. drugs will flow into our country and devastate american families. our borders will be wide open to

terrorists. this madness has to stop. >> i am john from north dakota. what a difference between the northern border and the southern border. i want to thank john and ted for bringing 18 senators here. we want the american people to understand what is going on here. we just want the american people to understand what is going on here because if they do, they will say no, this has to stop right now. you have to change this right now. we just came by a dead body in the water coming back to this press conference. last night when we landed, we went with the border patrol and saw where the migrants are coming across the river and up trails. they are being pressed under a bridge. is that how we do things in

america? people streaming in illegally. women and children. we let them come and process them under a bridge in the middle of the night? we won't let the american people see it? we won't let senators take a picture of it? is that how we do things in america now? the american people understand what is going on, they will say change this right now! that's what this is about. today we go to the data processing center. it's a tent! it's a big tent. how many of you have been in there? i guess not. well, we for there today. why aren't you in there? it's a big tent. with covid protocols, they are supposed to have a maximum of 250 people in there. 250. without covid-19 protocols a maximum of 1,000 people. how many are in there today? 4,200. in this sector alone 3,000

people a day are coming across every single day. we asked the custom and border patrol professionals what do you need to stop this to get on top of it to do your job? they said look, if you reinstate the remain in mexico and the third country approaches we can get out of this right now. that's what needs to happen. that needs to happen right now. as senator grassley and others said. let's address immigration in an intelligent and humane way. it starts with the american people understanding what is going on right now. and us changing it. thank you. >> i am cindy from mississippi. the men, you see behind me are

help us solve a problem. i am here to help solve a problem. we talked to border patrol and they told us how overwhelmed they are. how over-capacity they are. they have a hard job. they were just beginning to get a little relief before these policies changed. they were just about to be able to say we have a handle on most of this just before these policies changed. i am a mother. i have a daughter. after visiting where these kids are being kept that are close to my daughter's age, the stories we are hearing are beyond horrifying that is happening to these young people. we have a job to do. we have do go back to d.c. not only do we have to save this border. we have to save this country. >> i am from north carolina. a lot of my colleagues covered

the tragedy here. can you imagine how any president or vice-president given the facts we presented here and ladies and gentlemen, you go to our website and share this information with the american people. 2-year-old children sitting alone on a bench unaccompanied. they called them play pence but they are holding areas for little babies. i have pictures. report this to the american people and maybe the president will take noise. the next time vice-president harris is asked if she can coming to the border and laughing and saying not today. you have a crisis to fix. we stand ready to help. >> i am mike lee from utah. i am 1500 miles from home. i feel at home here. i lived here as a young man in the early 1990s. i loved the rio grande valley.

as if it were my own home. my heart is still here. i don't think i ever imagined back then spending time as i did hanging out here they would come back as 1 of 18 u.s. senators touring facilities along the u.s. border with this kind of misfortune and this kind of deliberateness in bad public policy. we are a nation of laws. we are a nation of immigrants. we need to be both. we don't have to choose between one and the other. if we cease to be either, we will cease to be both. it was a tragically moving experience. one i hope you as members of the news media will have as painful as it is. to have the visits we had over

the last 18 hours. the men, women and children who came across who have been trafficked. 30% were estimated to be subjected to sexual assault during the journey. in the last month it's estimated that the drug cartels are making $14 million every week smuggling them, abusing them and contributing to an environment of lawlessness. lawlessness is not compassion. open borders is not an answer to enabelling it human condition. [speaking spanish]. >> steve from montana. what is a montn doing on the southern border?

i report a northern border state that has a southern border crisis. we have not talked much about it today in the press conference what is going on with the drugs coming across the southern border. it's a zero sum gain down here in terms what have is going on with the border patrol. they have a limited number of resources. he deployed northern border resources to help out on the southern border. every hour they spend processing the flood of illegal immigrants coming across the border, is an hour that is taken away from being on the front line defending our country and stopping the flood of mexican meth, heroin and fentanyl. 20 years ago in montana health was homemade. it was home green. it had purity levels less than 30%. today the meth that is getting into montana is mexican cartel.

it's north of 95%. more dangerous and addictive and less expensive because they are producing so much of it and shipping it into our country. i spoke to a county sheriff in montana 48 hours ago. he was holding 7 mexican cartel members in his jail in montana. we had ms-13 gang members in montana. if a united states citizen wants to leave the country and come back in they need a passport and covid test result. that's not true right now on the southern border. we are scratching our head and asking why. >> i am james from oklahoma. i know where president biden doesn't want the media to be here. because we do have an open

borders. last night when we stood under that bridge we watched as families, if you had a six-year-old or younger come in you were resleased into the country. if you were an unaccompanied minor you were sent to the donna facility. that's designed for 80 people in a pod and they have 709 people in the pod when we were there. wall-to-wall in every plexiglas little cell and people flooding into the hallway. 709 people in a pod set up for 80. that's what happens to the unaccompanied minors. families are released into the country immediately. for single adults crossing the border, here's the basic thing that is occurring and everyone knows and so do the cartels. they will release 100 or more adults to go one direction and 100 children or families go a different direction. they turn themselves in.

so border patrol has to move to that spot and leave the rest of the border for adults with criminal records to come across. the definition of open borders. removing security from one area and allowing 50% of the border patrol to do input and data processing. to see this wall under construction and see the wall topping looks like. open gates. open gates where they station somebody from the border patrol to sit at that gate. no cameras, no lights, no technology and the area are the levy that protects these cities, the lev setaken down to put in the concrete levy. for 10 miles those areas are unprotected with no levy at all. we have a hazard this fall when the rainy seasons comes in this area and the possibility of a hurricane because construction

on the wall stopped so construction of the levy stopped as well. this is nonsensical. we saw none of this just 3 months ago. none of the problems were happening at that time. we didn't see the humanitarian crisis happening at that time. this needs to be addressed and can be addressed by president biden. it's clear there is a reason why he doesn't want the press to be here. >> [silence]. >> i am sorry that they won't allow you to see what we saw. i am not sure there are words in english to describe it. if you talked to the border patrol agents, those women and men will tell you. that what president biden is

doing is bone deep down to the marrow stupid! they want to go back to the border practices and the border security that existed on the day that president biden was inaugurated. president biden and vice-president harris need to come down here. i don't mean any disrespect. i am not trying to tell them how to do their jobs, but they need to come down here. it became clear to me today that there are 1 or 2 things going on here. either president biden believes in open borders. you do have to watch what politicians do and not what they say. or the people that president biden put in charge to make border security policy are not

qualified to manage a food truck. >> thank you very much. tom y, i recounted this valley as a football coach. i have seen things happen down here for years. i am just an american. i am embarrassed for the taxpayers of this country what i have seen in the last 24 hours. it brings tears to your eyes. this ain't a democrat or republican problem. this is an american problem. for years we kicked the can down the road as a federal government not taking care of this border and we should have. we elected a president donald trump because he got it elected

because he said he was going to fix it. he was trying to fix it. he was unelected. now we have a guy come in that changed it all. border patrol says give us a game plan. please don't do anything until you tell us what you are going to do so we can prepare. they changed it and what a complete mess! it is embarrassing that we have let down the american taxpayer and the people of mexico and we have let down the people of south america. we put them through this. if we don't change it, folks, like you just heard from everybody here,im the last one. if we don't change it, it will get ten times worse. thousands will die and you will ruin a country built on loyalty, dedication and compassion. this country ain't strong enough to withstand what is getting ready to happen.

they need to yet y'all in to report. it i hope to god you report what you see if they let you in. thank you very much. >> all right, a couple of questions? >> [inaudible]. ec [low audio]. >> [inaudible]. >> was it a crisis in 2019? [inaudible]? >> it wasn't a crisis in 2019. president trump tried to solve it and tried to work with congress and in a bipartisan manner. a number of us here were working

closely with president trump to solve it. it was a decision to mandate the release of children and family units which was a magnet for bringing more children and putting them in harm's way and causing them to be abused by human traffickers. president trump tried to work with congress and congressional democrats had zero interest in fixing it. what turned it around in 2019 the president negotiated a deal, the remain in mexico policy with the government of mexico. it was a lands mark deal that provided that when people came illegally from central america through mexico and applied for asylum in the united states they would remain in mexico while the matter was proceeding. the numbers dropped dramatically. last year we the lowest level of illegal immigration in 45 years. and joe biden came in and he

immediately tore up this international agreement with the government of mexico. he caused last month we had 100,000 people intercepted and this year 140,000 people. there are 15,000 children in custody right now. those numbers are rising and they are rising because of the biden administration's mistakes. >> two more questions. >> [shouting]. [inaudible]. >> [muffled audio]. >> [inaudible]. >> [muffled audio]. >> well, the premise of your question is not right. we are a nation of immigrants.

that's right. my father came to america from cuba in 1957. he was 18 and could not speak enlish and had $100 in his underwear. our nation is built by people coming here seeking freedom. there is no nation on earth more generous and welcomeing to immigrants than the united states of america. there is a right way to come. it's legally. following the rules. following the rule of law. coming here legally. the wong way to come is putting children in the custody of human traffickers who are criminals. we just saw a human body of someone who died crossing with a trafficker. this is inhumane. the democrats and the biden administration made decisions that are causing these people to suffer.

to do this in pandemic is particularly irresponsible. the illegal immigrants are testing positive for covid-19 at a rate 7 times higher than the u.s. population. this makes no sense. >> instead of asking the republican or the democrat ask the people in charge of policing the border what is the problem is. rather than making a political question, walk right over there and ask the guy: what the hell happened? we have a chart. i will give it to you. this was june. see this spike. what did trump do? he told mexico we will have asylum seekers stay in mexico. it went down to a 45 year low. somebody has to pay $25,000 to come to mexico and wait for 4 years. today the first plane load of kids went back to central

america. do your job as a reporter and ask the professionals what the hell is happening in the last couple of months. they told the biden administration if you do what you are planning, we will lose control of the border. they were right. i want to know who they told. i want those people to be held accountable. i won't give this up. i voted for every immigration bill in the united states senate. it's impossible for me to sit down with dick durbin and negotiate the solution to people already here. it will be a human tsunami. come to america and welcome. don't ask us. we are politicians. ask the people over here what happened and why have they lost control of the border? they will tell you. >> [shouting]. >> go for it.

>> [inaudible]. did you hear about this warning? [inaudible]. >> i missed the first part of your question. >> sure. [inaudible]. >> give me my graph. >> [inaudible]. >> i really don't understand the premise of your question. i have been working on this chart for a couple of years. it shows cause and effect. i will send it to all of your offices. the fact of the matter is yes

there is a huge surge for a number of reasons. there are a number of things that caused this crisis and president trump and his administration fixed the problem! that's the point we are trying to make. rather than following those policies to have this under control to take the next step, we were concerned -- we were so close to having secure borders to address immigration reform. instead president biden ignored the advice of professionals, blew off all of these reporters and we have a crisis that is far worse than it was in 2019. we had a day of over 6,000 people. that's a large car van per day. how do you handle this? put yourself in the men and

women's shoes here. how do you handle 6,000 people a day? come on, this is a crisis! >> [shouting]. >> [inaudible]. >> hold on for a second. hold on. >> [inaudible]. >> it's what lindsey graham said. president trump had a crisis and fixed it. we just had a meeting just last week with democratic members. we were there and other members. we said if you want to talk about immigration, we are prepared to. we have a crisis at the border. we have to understand again listening to what the folks on the ground are telling us and making sure that we have policies to secure this border.

you can't possibly have credible immigration reform in congress until you fix this crisis down here. >> thank you. >> senator, senator! >> [shouting]. >> hold on a sec. senator cruz and i are grateful for all of the colleagues that came down here 18 hours ago. you heard their remarks and answered your questions. they have have to catch an airplane to leave. some may hang around so you might catch them on a one-on-one basis. thanks for coming. >> thank you! >> neil: we wanted to take that whole thing and we did. to bring your attention to the fact that 18 senators and republicans and a democrat visited a separate facility. they took a boat tour of the rio grande river. they visited the donna texas

facilities that is housing migrants minors. 16,000 largely teenagers are there. many will be sent to u.s. facilities. the growing number of facilities is to prepare for the flood to come. most anticipate next week it could be over 20,000 and the week after that 25,000. no way of knowing here. the senators to a man and woman said that is on joe biden. the tone and the signal he sent upon his ination. -- inauguration: come to america and things am be different. the mexican president said that signal sent from candidate joe biden and finally president biden that sparked these crowds.

the president yesterday in his press conference said it's not unusual to see spikes in migrants coming to the country. there was a spike in 2019 in the trump administration. but this signal was something in the language of president biden himself using it as a kind approach that sent this wave at 1,000 to the being 60,000 now. we are talking closer to 100,000 with all immigrants on the border. we are explored ramifications. steve got a good chance to view in. what is likely to happen. >> the striking thing about the 19 senators when just got off gun boats behind me.

earlier they were at the donna facilities which is overcrowded and young people are suffering under tough conditions. what was striking was the emotion and the anger and the fury. a lot of senators angry about the conditions they have seen over the past 24 hours with their own eyes. they said children were packed like sardines inside the donna facility and the media is not allowed in there. a number of politicians coming to the border today while the republicans saw the donna facility. the democrats saw a health and human facility. that's a much more polished facility and not overfacility. -- overcrowded. they had classrooms and new clothing. each group saw a different picture of the border. it's hot out here in 90 degrees.

those senators were angry and they are not happy with the conditions here on the ground. >> neil: it seemed that all of the key facilities including donna, texas, they are filled way beyond capacity. if the throngs of these migrants, forget about just minors, but migrants period, they will run out of facilities aren't they? >> some pictures of the donna facility were released on twitter by senator cruz. some video also released. no cameras were allowed on either tour. the facility the democrats toured, they get an average of 500 a day. you need a new facility every day. to keep up with those numbers. it will be an incredible

challenge. >> neil: yes, especially as the weather gets hotter. thank you very much. great reporting through all of this. chad is with us. the former acting dhs secretary. i don't care about the semantics. it's a bad situation getting worse. how does it get better? >> absolutely. that process conference was astonishing. what the members saw and the pictures, what some of us previously served in the department have been saying for 2 months: it's a crisis that is extremely impacting the men and women. border patrol and the department. the decision to roll back the acan and take all of these tools off the table is the worst

decision that happened to the department of homeland security and the border patrol agentses in their 18 year history. it's a tragedy at the end of the day. how do you solve it? you go back to some of the policies we saw worked throughout 2020. can you improve upon them if that's what the biden administration want to do. but e moving them with nothing in place is the cause of what is going on today. >> neil: i know, for the people coming and not just the minors. some are put in facilities on the u.s. side of the border. under president trump they had to wait in mexico. that was reversed by the biden administration. how long would it be for some to return to mexico or points

south? >> well, it depends on which program. if you are coming over in 2020 under title 42 and covid, we turned around both families quickly. within hours in some cases. turning them back into mexico or staging them close to air fields where we would load them on aircrafts and reunite them with their families in their home country. that stopped. what that signals can you push children and family to the borders. some some cases they are not even getting a court notice to appear. they are not even in the immigration system as they are let go into american communities. it's turned what they did on the border today and the members of congress outlined that, have turned not only border

enforcement but immigration enforcement on its head. there is no enforcement on the border. the administration continues to address this as a capacity issue. building bigger facilities. that's important but until you address the illegal behavior and holds individuals accountable it will continue and it won't get better. >> neil: a number of the republicans senators mentioned they were challenged and mocked by those on the other side, those trying to get into the country and drug runners are helping them get here. how does that complicate resolving this? is a large number of people are convinced that president biden has their back. that seems to be where some are

coming from. the president a nice guy wants to send a signal go back and don't rush this. i am paraphrasing. that's why they are confident and coming in such large numbers because they think he will have their back. >> well, it's more specific an that. what we know is the cartels and the smugglers control that border. all of the individuals coming across that border are paying these individuals. they are astute to our policies and what occurs as they come across the river with the border patrol. in 2020 they were removered out of the country so the flow stopped. from january 20th, all individuals smuggled across the border remain in the u.s. and are released. very few single adults are returned to mexico.

they are advertising that to the northern triangle and others. i have been to the border dozens of time. they description they made about the cartels on the other side of the river taunting them is true. that's what they do. i have seen the look outs. they continue to do that because they know our policies better than us. they know that the border patrol won't send these folks back. they will rescue them from the water and bring them on to land and process them in border patrol facilities and release them. that's what they are selling to the individuals in the northern triangle and else where. it's a good business for them unfortunately. it's also causing half of the border patrol right now in the rio grande valley are no long or the line. no longer doing their national security mission. they are inside facilities caring for these large groups of individuals. obviously the cartels and others are taking advantage of this.

there are a number of things to be concerned about. not only the individuals and caring them and covid and the drugs and the cartels and the contraband coming across the border today. >> neil: chad, thank you very much. appreciate you taking the time. the former acting dhs secretary. i want to go to phil. i am not one to play media bias on the left or the right. i wondered watching this coverage if it were the reverse. 19 democrats were visitored cramped facilities at the border under the trump administration. everyone would have been glued to that one. >> well, democrats clearly had their opportunity in 2019 to do something similar with their trips to the border. the senate republicans are flipping the script. it's effective because the

contrast is unmistakable. yesterday president biden in the east room of the white house in the air conditioning saying it was not his fault. nothing had changed and the surge at the border right now is just a result of the different cycles. then you have 19 senate republicans who are down there in golf shirts and the one thing you take away from that, they are angelsry. -- angry. they were inside the detention facilities when journalists are not allowed inside. they saw a body from the rio grande. that's a stark difference. it's one the media can't ignore and that will cause problems that this administration literally cannot laugh away like we saw vice-president harris laugh when she said asked if she would go to the southern border. >> neil: now she is in charge of

dealing with this. should she go down to the border quickly, get a hands on look at this? >> well, of course, republicans are going to do everything to give the white house a black eye. especially on this issue at the border. at a moment we saw yesterday what does the president want to focus on: the pandemic and the stimulus. and his chief of staff seemed to complain there were not more questions about covid at yesterday's press conference. republicans will do everything to turn this into a political win. the real pressure is going to come from system of these house democrats who are saying, no, the president should be here. eventually if these numbers continue to increase, some members of congress like representative alexandria ocasio-cortez and others who did have a big media junket down to the southern border, eventually

it will be untenable for them to ignore what is going on there currently. >> neil: the democratic congressman with republican cornyn 2 weeks ago said something has to be done on a bipartisan basis. he was tired of one party going down with their team of people and the other party with their team of people. he said we have enough common ground on this. i had a hard time finding that common ground. they seem to be worlds apart dealing with this. one side wants it on the mexican side of the border. and the other the u.s. side of the border even accepting the number of people. one side is opening for as many if as takes and the other says it's too many. i don't see the common ground.

>> i don't see the common ground either. we heard that from senator lindsey graham who has been in favor of trying to come up with an immigration compromise. he can't even have a conversation with democratic colleagues right now. if you speak with republicans they will tell you they want to fix the crisis and they are frustrated when the current administration won't call it a crisis. that makes it more difficult to get comprehensive reform through. >> neil: thank you very much. the question is the follow-up from this and where we go. both parties are extremely far apart. common ground is out there. we just have not found it. more after this. ot a real idaho potato farmer. genuine idaho potatoes not just a side dish anymore. always look for the grown in idaho seal. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ >> shannon: hello, everyone, i'm shannon bream along with juan williams, jesse watters, greg gutfeld. it's 5:00 in new york city and this is "the five." >> shannon: g.o.p. senators releasing shocking images from our southern border. senator ted cruz saying these are the pictures the biden administration doesn't want the american people to see. they show cramped and overcrowded conditions in down a texas. the group of 17 senators demanding president biden take action to solve the problem. the images they are relea