'The View' hosts debate border policies, Title 42: 'We're floundering'
'The lifeboat is not at its strongest,' Haines said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The hosts of ABC's "The View" debated border policy during Wednesday's episode as Senate Republicans pushed to include an amendment that would reinstate Title 42 in the $10 billion COVID-19 relief bill.
Sara Haines sparred with Sunny Hostin over the influx of immigrants at the U.S. southern border and whether the U.S. was able to handle the expected increase in immigration. Hostin argued that there were laws in place that anyone entering the country has a "legal right" to "ask for asylum."
Migrants traveling in a caravan heading to the U.S. line up to be transported and processed for a humanitarian visa by agents of the National Migration Institute (INM), in Alvaro Obregon, Mexico, April 3, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Torres (REUTERS/Jose Torres)
"When Vice President Harris went down there she said these states were not equipped and we saw an influx, and they couldn’t house them. They were carrying food across the lakes," Haines said, noting that she loves the "spirit of it" and that we should "bring them all in."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}OVERSIGHT REPUBLICANS PUSH FOR ANSWERS ON DHS PLANS TO HANDLE BORDER SURGE WHEN TITLE 42 LIFTS
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks before President Joe Biden in support of changing the Senate filibuster rules that have stalled voting rights legislation, at Atlanta University Center Consortium, on the grounds of Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
"The problem right now is our boat is not at its strongest. The lifeboat is not at its strongest. We’re dealing with the highest inflation of 40 years. We’re in a war and trying to avoid World War III," she continued.
"If you say, ‘I want to save everybody’ and the boat flips, you save no one. If you can’t put your own mask on first, you can’t help other people. Right now we’re floundering," Haines said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hostin asked if they should just ignore asylum laws, to which Haines replied her co-host was jumping to a "zero-sum explanation."
"Even the administration in there right now, not Republican, Democrats said when they looked at it first hand, we got a problem, and they started to backtrack on things," Haines continued. "To make it an influx of almost threefold, I don’t know if we can handle it right now." Both agreed that the administration needed to figure out a way to follow asylum laws and handle the influx of migrants.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hostin said earlier in the segment that "there are laws in place" and that "under U.S. law, a refugee is a person who is unable to or unwilling to return to his home country because of various reasons."
"In this country, once you enter the country, you have a right, a legal right because of our Constitution, because of the strength of our laws to ask for asylum," she continued, contending that the Biden administration "expelled 14,000 Haitians."
Hostin claimed that the "law is okay for some people, but not okay for people that look like me."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an event at the Royal Castle, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Warsaw, Poland March 26, 2022. Slawomir Kaminski /Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERS (Reuters)
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Title 42 is expected to be lifted in May, the Biden administration announced on Friday. The public health policy was put in place during the Trump administration and allowed border patrol agents to turn away migrants at the border in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday found that 56% of Americans oppose the decision to lift Title 42.