Actor and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) got more than he bargained for after blaming both Republicans and Democrats for federal immigration raids in Los Angeles.
Schwarzenegger was on the red carpet for the Season 2 premiere of his Netflix series, "Fubar," last month when he commented on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
“Well, I’m not so much interested in that as I am that the politicians have the responsibility to create immigration reform so we don’t have to have this crap going on in the first place," he told Variety on June 12. “This is the result of Democrats and Republicans not being able to come together in this immigration reform. And so that’s what needs to be done so that you don’t have to go and start arresting people in the first place, so we know who is in this country and who is working here, who has the temporary working permit, who has the permanent working permit."
He added: “We don’t even know who is in here,” referring to collecting data on undocumented workers. “For decades now, they have been avoiding the subject because it’s an advantage to both parties to not do it. So they’re all political hacks, party hacks, rather than public servants.”
The remarks took about a month to reach the eyes of Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who screenshotted Variety's social media post sharing Schwarzenegger's remarks, and promptly smacked them down in a profanity-laden fact-check.
"This 'Democrats and Republicans' line is bulls---. I wrote a bipartisan bill last year that would have stopped all asylum seekers from being released into the country. It gave POTUS emergency power to shut down the border. It put billions into border security. Trump killed it," Murphy noted.
The senator is referring to the Border Act of 2024, which would have significantly restricted the release of asylum seekers and given the president new emergency powers to shut down the border during periods of extraordinarily high migrant crossings. In May 2024, the bill failed to pass a 60-vote threshold to move forward.
