Stephen Miller calls Bush immigration policy a ‘betrayal’

White House adviser Stephen Miller defended President Trump’s emergency declaration in an interview Sunday and blasted former President George W. Bush of betraying the country by allowing illegal border crossings to increase.

Debating the facts surrounding migrants and drugs coming across the border with host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” policy adviser Stephen Miller laid the blame at Bush’s feet.

“So let’s start with your point about the border crossings in the year 2000. As you know, when George Bush came into office, illegal immigration total – doubled from 6 million to 12 million by the time he left office,” Miller said. “That represented an astonishing betrayal of the American people.”

Wallace, addressing Trump’s claim of an “invasion” of illegal immigrants, had pointed out that illegal border crossings last year were a quarter than they were in 2000 and that the majority of the people in the US illegally were because they overstayed their visas.

“I’m not going to sit here today and tell you that George Bush defended this country on the southern border because he did not,” Miller said. “One of the biggest changes that’s happened since then and now is the mass release of illegal aliens due to a patchwork of court rulings and loopholes in our federal laws and changing tactics from smugglers and transnational organizations.”

Citing government statistics, Wallace said up to 90 percent of the cocaine, heroin and fentanyl seized at the border occurred at ports of entry, not along unfenced areas as Trump claimed.

“But, Chris, the problem with the statement that you’re apprehending 80 to 90 percent of the drugs at the ports of entry, that’s like saying, you apprehend this contraband at TSA checkpoints at airports,” Miller said. “You apprehend the contraband there because that’s where you have the people, that’s where you have the screeners.”

Trump declared a national emergency on the southern border on Friday that would enable him to access $8 billion in funds to build a wall.

The action came after Congress passed a spending bill that would give him $1.3 billion, far short of the $5.7 billion he had demanded.