Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visits the border, sees crisis firsthand
Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot discussed meeting with Democratic presidential candidate RFK Jr. at the border
The sheriff for Yuma County, Arizona, applauded Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Thursday for visiting the southern border to see firsthand how the crisis has impacted the community.
"He's spent more time at the border than our border czar," Sheriff Leon Wilmot told "America's Newsroom," referencing Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Biden White House challenger described the horrific conditions faced by migrants, calling the crisis is "unsustainable."
"This is not a good thing for our country, it’s not a good thing for these people, and it is unsustainable," Kennedy said in a video posted alongside the border wall.
2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recorded video at the Yuma border sector in Arizona, Tuesday, while migrants crossed in the early morning hours. (Screenshot/"America's Newsroom")
Harris, who was appointed to lead efforts at the southern border as the border czar, has only visited the southern border once since taking office in 2021, despite the ongoing migrant surge into the U.S.
During a January visit to Arizona to attend a groundbreaking ceremony for an energy infrastructure project, the vice president defended her decision not to see the border during her trip.
"I am here to talk about what we are doing around bringing down the cost to American families and creating jobs," Harris told local news station KPHO. "Let me say on the border that it is one of our highest priorities to continue to work on making sure that the border is secure and that we also do what is necessary to have a fair and humane system."
"Frankly, Congress needs to act," she continued. "We've put a historic number of agents on the border. We have upgraded and are in the process of upgrading technology. But Congress needs to act."
Wilmot said RFK Jr. got an unprecedented look at the crisis by witnessing crossings from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m., adding he has never seen anyone visit during that time.
"I got to commend the candidate for actually coming down to the border and doing research and actually sitting down not only with the CEO from our local hospital who has been impacted by this crisis, but also our food bank. He met with the Family Advocacy Center, our board of supervisors. He met with the mayor, and he got to hear from the whole community. And unfortunately, that's more than our border czar," Wilmot said.
Vice President Kamala Harris tours a U.S. Border Patrol Station in El Paso, Texas, on June 25, 2021. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
"He got to see not only the vast amounts of individuals coming across but from all the different countries that were also crossing. Not everybody thinks it's just individuals from Mexico. No, we've had over 140 different countries cross just in our sector alone."
The Yuma border sector saw over 124,000 migrant encounters in FY 2023 (Oct.-April), according to CBP data. Wilmot added there have been 9,000 getaways so far in the same time period.
"He got to see not only the impacts on the resources here and hear about that, but he also got to see the environmental catastrophe that we're seeing along our river corridor," Wilmot continued.
"You've got pharmaceuticals that are being just dumped on the ground there, dumping their IDs, their passports, all their trash, all that's down there along our river corridor. And that's not good for the environment or the wildlife that is down there."
Wilmot further described what his team is dealing with in the sector.
"My agencies actually handled over 800 911 calls from migrants that were lost or abandoned out in our desert. About seven deaths so far this calendar year that we've had to go out, locate and recover. On top of the 70 that we had last year, those are records for our county that we've never seen before."
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RFK Jr. told Fox News Digital he will "make the border impervious" if elected president.
"We cannot release people, illegal aliens across the border," he said.
"But we also need to recognize that this is a humanitarian crisis, and we need to fix the policies that have caused this mass migration, including decades of U.S. foreign policy that have imposed austerity on those governments, neoliberal policies that have encouraged the rise of the Junta military dictatorship that has trained and supported death squads in countries across Central America."
Fox News' Adam Shaw and Aubrie Spady contributed to this report