Sadly, replacing Donald Trump in the Oval Office with Joe Biden did not solve the United States’ immigration crisis. Now that the problem is on the Biden administration’s plate, however, some who previously lavished praise on Trump for his handling of the border are now excoriating Biden for doing essentially the same thing. Case in point: Texas Senator and central villain in former House Speaker John Boehner’s new book Ted Cruz, who made a spectacle of himself during a recent “fact-finding mission” to the border. Cruz also took the opportunity to pick a fight with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, unloading on Democrats for supporting “amnesty,” “open borders” and abolishing ICE.

As John and Viviana point out in this clip from The Damage Report, AOC clapped right back at Cruz, noting that the Texas Senator himself fled the country for Mexico to escape a crisis, told Cruz he has “no policy, just puff,” and suggested that the next time he tries to cross the border, perhaps Mexico shouldn’t let him in. Viviana says we need to fundamentally stop looking at the migrants coming to the US as the problem and instead focus on the foreign policy decisions - whether in places like Mexico and El Salvador or Iraq and Syria - that are driving people to flee their home countries, as well as the carceral state here at home that makes it profitable for companies to incarcerate and detain these economic and political refugees.

John adds that critics like Cruz bring no actual solutions to the border nor compassion for the suffering of those trying to come to the United States.

“Is he saying Biden needs to get these kids into appropriate conditions right now, that he will not go back to DC until everyone is on an individual bed and they're being vaccinated and they're being protected?” John asks. “Is he doing any of that? No, in the same way that he is ‘all puff no policy,’ his whole border thing is feigned outrage - no humanity, no acknowledgement of the human situation there. It’s all this famed concern about borders and walls.”