ABC News reporter blames Republicans for invasion at southern border, claims Biden didn't invite illegal migrants to 'come on over'

In a recent interview with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, ABC News' Martha Raddatz suggested that Republican critiques of the Biden administration's open-border policies — not the policies themselves — are to blame for the invasion under way at the southern border.

By way of strategically faulty memory, Raddatz also claimed that President Joe Biden never called on illegal aliens to "come on over."

What are the details?

Raddatz, the reporter who wept bitterly on television when former President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, discussed the border crisis with Abbott in an interview on ABCs' "This Week" that aired Sunday evening.

"You talk about the border wall, you talk about open borders, I don't think I've ever heard President Biden say, 'We have an open border, come on over,'" said Raddatz.

Raddatz may not have heard Biden struggle with those exact words, but in the first Democratic primary debate, she might have caught Biden say that when he is president, illegal aliens should "surge to the border. ... We're a nation that says, 'You want to flee, and you're fleeing oppression, you should come.'"

In recent years, Biden has gone beyond explicitly telling foreign nationals who knowingly violate American territorial sovereignty "to come," promising them health care; an end to detentions of illegal border crossers; an end to deportations; and amnesty.

The Biden administration spent billions to halt construction of the previous administration's planned border wall and was instrumental in lifting the Trump-era Title 42 border policy, which served as a partial bulwark against illegal immigration and foreigner-borne disease during the pandemic.

While an unprecedented number of illegal aliens have stolen across the southern border since Biden took office (over 2.37 million in 2022 and 1.73 million in 2021), officials anticipate a greater flood after Title 42 is eliminated on Dec. 21.

Shifting blame

In the final stretch of the interview, Raddatz cited the opinion of unnamed sources, claiming that it was the rhetoric employed by Republican critics of Biden's open-borders policies that has been driving illegals to make the crossing.

"People I have heard say [that the border is open] are you, are former President Trump, Ron DeSantis — that message reverberates in Mexico and beyond. So they do get the message that it is an open border, and smugglers use all those kinds of statements," said Raddatz.

Abbott responded, "It was known from the time that Joe Biden got elected that Joe Biden supported open borders. It's known by the cartels who have sophisticated information. Whether or not the Biden administration is going to enforce the immigration laws or not is known across the world, but most importantly known among the cartels."

Border states, White House bracing for migrant surge when title 42 ends l This Weekyoutu.be

Newsbusters' Kevin Tober called Raddatz' allegation "obviously absurd."

Republicans "can proclaim the border to be open, but if it wasn’t, migrants would be unable to get into the United States in the numbers that they are," wrote Tober.

Despite suggesting that Republicans were to blame, in the segment, Raddatz spoke to a pair of illegal aliens who confirmed that Biden's border policy changes was what prompted their journey.

Although Raddatz may have trouble remembering, last year, an illegal alien informed her that he would "definitely not" have tried to cross while Trump was in office; that his reason for coming was "basically" because Biden was now in office.