Jared Kushner Calls Using Immigrants As ‘Political Pawns’ ‘Troubling’

Former Trump White House Jared Kushner said this week in an interview on Fox News he finds “very troubling” that immigrants are being used as “political pawns.”

Kushner commented on the nationwide outrage to the move by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. He did not directly criticize DeSantis but condemned political stunts “one way or the other.”

“I personally watch what’s happening and it’s very hard to see at the southern border,” Kushner stated during Fox News’s Outnumber. “We have to remember these are human beings. They’re people. So seeing them being used as political pawns one way or the other is very troubling to me.”

The adviser to former President Donald Trump also commented on the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rep that more than two million undocumented immigrants were arrested at the Souther Border from July 2021 to August 2022, a 20% increase compared to the previous fiscal year.

Kushner defended the former president’s immigration policies and argued that President Joe Biden‘s decision to terminate them is the reason for the current crisis.

In a statement, CBP attributed the increase to a greater influx of immigrants from countries the U.S. doesn’t have diplomatic relations with, which makes the process of repatriation harder.

“Failing communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest U.S. border,” said CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus.