The White House lays the blame for a Cleveland, Texas, mass shooting on gun violence with an AR-15-style weapon — but it's the Biden administration's "failed policies" that led to the massacre, a law enforcement official said Tuesday on Newsmax.
In an interview on "National Report," Lt. Christopher Olivarez of the Texas Highway Patrol railed at press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre's remarks on the carnage, while ignoring that shooter Francisco Oropesa, 38, was an illegal immigrant who'd been deported four times.
"Of course they're not going to address the fact that he was an illegal immigrant because … it's going to fall back on their failed policies and … the fact that they're allowing so many individuals turn to the border illegally… and doing nothing to stop that flow," Olivarez said.
"And that's why we're seeing some of these daily consequences from … individuals that have the intent to cause harm, to cause the threat to public safety," he said, and "hasn't to do with gun violence … [or] the type of weapon that this individual was using."
"He had the intent … to kill," Olivarez said.
"It does not matter what weapon he used. The fact of the matter is that this individual should not have been in the country. … It should have stopped at the first time, but yet there was no consequence."
And, he asserted, the White House will not acknowledge that "because it's going to fall back on their failed policies."
The lawman also asserted U.S. immigration policies are "much worse" now under the Biden administration.
"We try to apply consequences as much as we can at the state level, but … at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is the federal government has to put policies in place and actually apply consequences to those [deported] individuals that reenter the country," Olivarez said, decrying "there's no jail time, there's no consequences, and that's why we keep seeing … this reoccurrence of these individuals entering the country illegally."
"We have some serious issues with the immigration system, and that's a clear example of it," he said of the latest mass shooting, noting the border flow is "actually much worse now with the current administration in place, because obviously they're not following the immigration policies, they are not employing any type of enforcement action for those that violate federal law by entering the country illegally."
"Border Patrol's hands are tied. It's not their fault," he added, because "they're getting directives from the federal government too."