Trump Demands ‘Criminal Penalties’ for Biden-Admin Officials Who Refuse to Enforce Immigration Law

Former President Donald Trump gave an address to his followers Friday evening in Harrisburg, Pa., in which he denounced the current administration’s stance on gun rights, called for criminal penalties for Biden officials neglecting the border, and mocked the president’s old-age. Trump also shrugged off his own court proceedings as acts of targeted political prosecution.

Trump spoke to a large and energetic crowd at the National Rifle Association’s Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg. While the former president began his address with a promise to repeal Biden’s limitations on gun owners and manufacturers, he soon moved to discuss the immigration crisis.

“If the Senate wants to pass a real border bill, they should establish criminal penalties for senior Biden officials who refuse to enforce the existing law,” Trump said.

His comment came soon after the House failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, for the “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “breach of public trust” by a dramatically slim margin.

Throughout its tenure, the Biden administration has allowed a record number of illegal immigrants into the country. Border Patrol agents encountered more than 300,000 immigrants at the Southern border in December, the agency reported, up nearly 50,000 since last December. Agents encountered a record-breaking 2.4 million migrants in total last year.

Tension over the border remains high in the capital as Congress remains in session to sort through the pieces of the fractured border bill, which Senate republicans sunk earlier this week.

The bill, in its current form, gives the president authority to exclude illegal aliens once there are an average of more than 4,000 illegal crossings a day over seven days and mandates that he does so once there are an average of 5,000 over seven days, or 8,500 on a single day. However, under current law, the president already has the power to stop any and all illegal crossings — meaning the bill would effectively enshrine executive leniency into law.

Trump derided the administration’s negligence and the splintered border deal in his speech at the NRA venue:

“They don’t want to do anything — you don’t need a bill! The president has the right to say: “close the borders!” The bill is a hoax. The Democrats are asking for this bill that is so ridiculous — it’s a horrible bill — it’s actually going to make it worse. But I keep saying, you don’t need a bill.”

Trump proceeded to tout his tough-on-illegal-immigration record to applause from the crowd.

Trump also made reference to Biden’s poor performance at a press conference Thursday evening, where the president’s old age was clearly on display. The president came under fire for a special counsel report released on February 5, which concluded that the president’s memory was too poor to stand trial for the mishandling of classified documents. Biden could not remember the years he served as Vice President, nor “even within several years, when his son Beau died.”

Trump, who is currently undergoing prosecution for mishandling classified documents, decried the double standard, calling it a “two-tiered system of Justice.”

“If Biden is not going to be charged, that’s up to them,” he said. “If he’s not going to be charged, that’s up to them, but I should not be charged.” Trump described his current trial as “nothing more than selective prosecution of Biden’s opponent, me.”

As to who was behind his prosecution, Trump said, “I don’t know that it’s Biden, because I don’t think he knows he’s alive.”

Despite having lost the state in 202, Trump expressed confidence that he was going to win Pennsylvania in 2024.

“Some of the guys working here said, “Sir, you are more popular in this state right now, you’re gonna blow Pennsylvania away.” That’s what I think is going to happen.”

The former president’s address to his enthusiastic Pennsylvania audience lasted nearly an hour and a half.