Fox News called for the end of “catch and release”

• In 2022, Fox host Sean Hannity outlined his plan to “change the problems at the border,” saying he would “go back to the Trump policies of Stay in Mexico, building the wall, and ending catch and release — or in Joe's case, catch and process.” [Fox News, Hannity, 4/19/22]
• Hannity praised then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s “commitments to America,” including “ending Biden's catch and release, and, of course, bringing back the successful Trump policies on the border.” “This is an agenda that Republicans support,” Hannity maintained. [Fox News, Hannity, 1/5/23]
• Fox contributor Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a potential border security bill – which, as Fox host Brian Kilmeade qualified, would also provide funding for Ukraine and Israel – must “end catch and release.” Homan continued, “As long as you keep releasing people, they are going to keep coming.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/7/23]
• On Fox & Friends, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez said the federal government should be “putting consequences in place to prevent illegal entries and to end catch and release.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/19/23] 

Fox News encouraged border wall construction

• Former Fox host Tucker Carlson called Abbott’s decision to continue border wall construction “an amazing development.” Abbott also pointed out that “never before has a state of the United States of America had to step up and build its own border wall.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 12/17/21]
• Anchor Neil Cavuto and Texas Sheriff A.J. Louderback praised Abbott for his plans to continue building the border wall. Louderback added, “When you're faced with the kind of federal administration here that has no regard for Texas or Americans here in the policies that they put in place, we got to protect ourselves. That's what our governor is doing. That's what Gov. Greg Abbott is doing right now.” [Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 6/11/21]

Fox News criticized the reduction of detention capacity 

• Former Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody complained that the Biden administration “cut [migrant families’] detention in half, their detention capacity.” Fox host Kayleigh McEnany added, “If these facilities fill up, we'll just release people on the streets.” [Fox News, Fox News Tonight, 5/11/23]
• Fox News guest and former acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf argued that a “historic number of family units” are crossing the border because “the Biden administration has eliminated family detention, the ability to hold families.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 9/1/23]

Fox News advocated more funding for ICE

• Host Jesse Watters argued that the left wants to abolish “everything that protects us,” including ICE. [Fox News, The Five, 7/10/20]
• Frequent Fox News guest Stephen Miller claimed that Biden “benched” ICE officers. He added, “They’re not allowed to do their jobs,” which he described as removing “illegal aliens and primarily criminals from the interior.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 5/2/23]
• Fox News guest Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) advocated for policy changes like “[putting] more money for ICE” so that asylum seekers “can be sent back to the country of their origin,” to which host Brian Kilmeade said, “Thank you. Absolutely.” [Fox News, One Nation with Brian Kilmeade, 1/6/24]

Fox News called for raising asylum standards

• Fox News contributor Sara Carter said the increasing number of asylum claims “has been a problem for many decades.” She also claimed that drug traffickers “actually advise people coming across the border, it doesn't matter what your claim is, just claim it. Claim if you have been abused by your husband, claim that you are gay and that your country will prosecute you.” [Fox News, The Next Revolution, 6/5/22]
• Fox News guest host and former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) complained that the current asylum standards allow for migrants to stay in the U.S. awaiting court hearings “years in the future.” He also questioned, “How good is the U.S. at detecting fraud in the asylum process?” [Fox News, Fox News Tonight, 5/22/23]
• Host Brian Kilmeade said, “I really like the sound of that, referring to the idea of “a deal that has real asylum reforms and will end catch-and-release overall.” [Fox News, One Nation with Brian Kilmeade, 1/6/24]
• Host Jesse Watters proclaimed that Biden “would stop the asylum craziness” if he “really wanted to secure the border and stop the deaths.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/17/24]

• At the top of an interview with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Fox host Laura Ingraham announced, “The president actually just got off the phone with me right before the show, and he said he had spoken to you about this deal, and that he is against it, and he urged you to be against this deal. He was extremely – President Trump was extremely adamant about that.” Johnson responded, “President Trump is not wrong. He and I have been talking about this pretty frequently. I talked to him night before last about the same subject.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/17/24] 

Fox & Friends First

• Fox contributor Tomi Lahren said the bill “codifies and it legitimizes the invasion that’s going on at our southern border.” Lahren added, “Joe Biden could fix this any time he wants. I doubt he’s up right now, but if Joe Biden is up right now, he could fix the border crisis right now with a stroke of a pen. He undid our national security with a stroke of a pen in the early days of his administration, undoing everything that Trump did.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends First, 2/6/24] 

Fox & Friends

• Co-host Lawrence Jones criticized the bill, saying, “That doesn't sound like a conservative approach, and it sounds like amnesty to me.” Co-host Steve Doocy commented that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Republicans reportedly opposed the bill because “it ultimately would help Joe Biden get reelected.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/18/24] 

America’s Newsroom

• Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier complained that the reported text of the bill did not cover Biden’s executive orders that reversed Trump’s border policies, saying: “Remain in Mexico, day one. Stop the border wall, day one. Catch and release, day one. These are a series of executive orders that changed the policy that clearly was working under the Trump administration and they don't talk about that. And it’s all about this bill and how important it is at this moment.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 1/30/24]

The Faulkner Focus

• Anchor Harris Faulkner agreed with Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) claim that “Republicans want to secure the border. What we don't want is a bill that will normalize thousands of illegal migrants a day and hamstring a future president.” Faulkner chimed in, “Exactly.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 2/2/24] 
• Faulkner argued with National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd that the bill would not help Border Patrol but would tie Trump’s hands if he is reelected. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 2/6/24]

Outnumbered

• On Outnumbered, Fox contributor Marc Thiessen denied that Republicans opposed the bill because they wanted to run on the border issue in 2024, claiming they opposed it because they “think it’s a bad deal.” Thiessen continued that the bill “codifies Biden's 2021 border disaster as that’s the new standard. That’s okay. We considered that unacceptable until every year it got worse. So it’s actually taking Biden’s least bad year, which was – at that time, the worst year in history – and making that the legislative standard for what’s okay.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 1/29/24] 
• Co-host Harris Faulkner: “Inside the bill, $60 billion in Ukraine aid, $14 billion for Israel, $10 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion for our Indo-Pacific partners. That leaves $20 billion for the borders, both north and south. That’s not a border bill.” Correspondent Griff Jenkins claimed that Border Patrol agents “from the rank and file all the way up to the senior leadership” were not happy with the bill. [Fox News, Outnumbered, 2/5/24] 
• While waiting for Biden to make an address regarding the border bill, Fox host Steve Hilton said, “What he won’t do is take responsibility for his role in this. On day one, he reversed the policies that had the border the most secure it’s been in years. And still, he’s pretending that it's actually new legislation he needs rather than just doing his job.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 2/6/24] 
• Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe dismissed Hudson Institute senior fellow Rebecca Heinrichs’ argument that Republicans should pass the bill to increase the military industrial base and munitions, saying, “I think Ukraine has got enough money.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 2/12/24] 

America Reports

• Over a chyron claiming “Biden refuses to take action,” Fox anchor John Roberts said the border deal is “clearly an imperfect bill if it’s drawing opposition from both sides.” [Fox News, America Reports, 2/6/24] 
• Fox contributor Katie Pavlich dodged Roberts’ questions about Trump opposing the bill so he could run on the border issue, saying, “The bottom line and the reason why Republicans are opposed to this bill, not to mention the problems that Democrats have with this bill, is that they don't believe it will solve the border crisis that we’re seeing.” [Fox News, America Reports, 2/6/24] 

The Story with Martha MacCallum

• Fox anchor Martha MacCallum argued that Biden could secure the border now: “It doesn't seem like it's a priority for him to stop the flow of people coming across. It sounds like the priority is to help them get across more easily.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 1/24/24]
• Speaking with MacCallum, OutKick founder Clay Travis claimed that if Biden “really wanted to solve the border issue, do you think he’d wait for Congress? Of course not. He's just trying to shift the blame for what he and his administration have caused.” MacCallum added, “It would be fairly easy. You know, ‘I've done all I can’ is absolutely, just factually not true.” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 1/30/24]

Your World with Neil Cavuto

• Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto highlighted the number of migrants allowed per day in this bill: “We don't know for sure if it's true, Congressman, that up to 5,000, you know, is the ceiling that could be allowed staying in here every day. You know, Jeh Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary under Barack Obama said that anything over 1,000 was crazy.” [Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 2/1/24]
• Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Lt. Christopher Olivarez: “You have women and children that are crossing the river, so this bill did nothing as far as trying to prevent that, or even border security in itself. No physical barriers, no focus on going after the cartels, fentanyl. So, in at least my opinion, as far as in Texas, from an operational perspective, it was not going to be a bill that was going to support what we are doing. In fact, it was going to make it much worse for us." [Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 2/8/24] 

The Five

• Co-host Jesse Watters said Biden “could stop the flows [of migrants] if he wanted to like that,” snapping his fingers and claiming that the president preferred the border bill “because it’s an election year.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/22/24]
• Dismissing the need for the bill, co-host Jeanine Pirro told Biden to shut down the border now and to “stop playing around.” She then spouted talking points from the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, suggesting Democrats were allowing more migrants in through the border to have them “vote Democrat.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/30/24]
• Watters claimed that the president doesn’t need “any new powers from Congress” to secure the border, then called the Biden administration's immigration policies “borderline treasonous.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/30/24]
• Pirro argued, “You can arrest them, you don’t need anything else.” She continued, “He says it's going to be the toughest and fairest bill on immigration ever. But to whom? Not to Americans, but to the illegals.” [Fox News, The Five, 2/6/24]
• Watters claimed the border bill included “reparations for migration.” He explained, “If Biden would ever deport someone back to their original country, we now pay those countries $250 million to reintegrate the migrants we've deported. … What do you think Ecuador is thinking, ‘We’re just going to steal that money and we’re just going to keep sending more Juans so the money keeps coming back to us.’” [Fox News, The Five, 2/7/24]

Special Report with Bret Baier

• Fox News’ chief political anchor Bret Baier placed the blame for the border on Biden's executive orders: “The Biden administration, every time it's asked, says they put forward a bill, and they -- Republicans are holding back money, they’re not making a deal. And, yet, it was the Biden administration, President Biden, who reversed [the] remain in Mexico policy, the catch and release policy was put in place.” Contributor Katie Pavlich added, “They have tried to pin this on the Republicans by saying they introduced this big, comprehensive bill. This isn't about comprehensive immigration reform. The White House wants more money for border patrol agents to process illegal immigrants.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 1/24/24] 
• Fox News guest and conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt said, “Trump is right to say, ‘It’s got to be a perfect deal.’” He continued, “There is not 900 miles of wall in this deal. Therefore it's a terrible deal.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 1/25/24] 
• Baier complained that “people are definitely blaming Republicans for killing the border deal in the crib before it gets out.” He continued, “No matter what happens on Capitol Hill, there are other things the Biden administration could have … done to stop this.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 1/26/24]
• Fox News guest Matthew Continetti: “This is Biden's fundamental problem, is he’s asking for a congressional solution to a problem created by the executive.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 1/29/24]
• Fox host Trey Gowdy questioned why a Republican would “bail” Biden out and support the border bill when the border is “one of Joe Biden’s biggest Achilles’ heels.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 2/5/24]
• In a ‘Common Ground’ segment with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Baier said to Blumenthal that “it’s tough for Republicans and conservatives” to hear Biden blame Trump for the border, saying Biden “could have done executive orders.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 2/6/24]
• In an interview with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Baier asked, “Now, is there anything preventing President Biden from going down to the border -- and he hasn't done that -- and saying, ‘Listen, they didn't give me everything I want and they didn't do the bill, but I have things I can do and here it is: remain in Mexico, catch and release end.’ You know, do it by executive order. What's preventing him from doing that tomorrow?” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier, 2/7/24]

The Ingraham Angle

• Fox host Laura Ingraham asked Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) about the border deal on her prime-time show: “What is your message to Senate leadership given the fact that we're going to have an election in, you know, several months and President Trump, if he’s elected, you know, in 24 hours, we’ll have this border largely secure?” “My message is, is that it would be an incredible insult to voters all across America to tell them that they’ve got to accept 50,000 more green cards every year,” Hawley responded. “They’ve got to accept 5,000 illegal immigrants crossing the border every single day before the border can be shut down. They’ve got to accept expedited work permits for illegal aliens.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/18/24]
• Ingraham claimed the bill was part of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) plan to help Biden win reelection, adding, “Any notion that a border deal passed now is going to be better than anything Trump can do is ludicrous.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/18/24] 
• Ingraham said details of the immigration compromise “do not matter” and pledged to personally work to defeat any Republican who voted for it. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/19/24] 
• Ingraham said the idea that Trump and Republicans wanted “chaos at the border to use as an issue against Biden” was “fatuous and untrue,” but then argued against the border bill because it would improve “Biden’s political fortunes.” “Literally nothing in the country would improve except Biden's political fortunes,” Ingraham said. “It would be suicidal for the GOP to help Biden sweep the border crisis under the rug so we can have more chaos once Biden is reelected.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/25/24]
• In her monologue attacking the border bill, Ingraham claimed it was “a win-win” for both Biden and McConnell: “You get the Ukraine money, you get more migrants, and you get political cover for the Democrats,” she said. “But it is a gut punch to American workers. No wonder they don't want senators consulting with Trump.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/26/24] 
• In the following segment, Ingraham pressed Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) when he defended the border bill, arguing that it would give “Biden political cover in an election year.” “Why would you do that given what this man has done to our country?” she added. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/26/24] 
• Ingraham claimed that border bill funding used to hire more immigration judges and other staff would have given “Biden the chance to hire a bunch of woke people who will do everything possible to help bring more migrants into the country.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/29/24] 
• Ingraham denied that conservatives opposed the bill because it was an election year, claiming the bill was “unnecessary and indefensible,” and praised the Oklahoma GOP for voting to censure the bill’s co-author, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/29/24] 
• Fox contributor and former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich described the border bill as “suicidally stupid” and compared the deal to “having an absolute, winning hand and saying, ‘Please, can I just lay these down and lose the game anyway?’” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/29/24]
• Ingraham said that Biden, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and McConnell “cooked up that bogus immigration deal to fund Ukraine and help Biden.” “But it’s Trump’s view that will ultimately carry the day, because he actually did have the border under control by the end of his term,” she added. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/31/24]
• After the Senate released the bill’s text, Ingraham attacked it, calling it a “grab bag of goodies for the open borders caucus.” “Conservatives that have cared about the border for years, decades, they get a bill that gives them nothing that they wanted on the border. And, in fact, it would tie President Trump's hands if in fact he wins in November.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/5/24] 
• Ingraham: “Trusting Biden and Mayorkas on a border bill would be like trusting Jeffrey Epstein at a senior prom.” “It would have hamstrung Trump from implementing a true border enforcement operation, which he knows how to do,” she continued. “And to add insult to injury, it would have given Biden a small political escape hatch on the border issue itself. But why would any Republican ever agree to that?” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/6/24] 
• Ingraham asked Rep. Mike Lee (R-UT) what he would say to Republican colleagues “holding out hope that some version of this bill will ultimately get passed,” to which Lee responded that the GOP would kill the bill because “Joe Biden created this border crisis.” Alongside a chyron declaring “Americans do not want this sham border bill,” Lee said, “This thing is going to die. It's going to die, not because Republicans are petulant, and they don't want to solve the border. It's going to die because, number one, we know that Joe Biden created this border crisis. That's why we have this humanitarian disaster unfolding on our southern border. It is not for want of adequate legislative authority, that this happened. It is because Joe Biden has defiantly, willfully refused to enforce the border.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/6/24] 
• On February 7, Ingraham used her opening monologue to gloat about the Senate blocking the border bill: “Corporate censors could not prevent the truth about this legislation from coming out,” Ingraham said. “Obviously, you’ve been watching the Angle as we meticulously laid out the parade of horribles that the Senate had embedded in this bill.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 2/7/24] 

Jesse Watters Primetime

• Fox host Jesse Watters claimed that Biden “has always had the power he needs to secure the border.” Watters added, “The media is so ignorant, they think Congress needs to pass another law for Joe Biden to act.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 1/30/24] 
• Watters spent his entire February 5 monologue attacking the bill, calling it “a government jobs program that lets in more migrants” and claiming the deal’s backers were “codifying chain migration.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/5/24] 
• On Watters’ show, conservative radio host Dana Loesch called the deal’s Republican backers “absolute eunuchs” and said the bill was “an absolute betrayal to the republic.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 2/5/24] 

Hannity

• Host Sean Hannity argued new legislation was not needed to address the border because “since his very first day in office, Biden has done everything to dismantle Trump-era policies, the ones that worked, that kept the border safe and secure.” An on-screen graphic then scrolled through Biden’s actions that allegedly led to the border crisis, as Hannity claimed, “He can fix all of this — he did this all with the stroke of a pen. He can undo them with the stroke of a pen. Congressional action is not required.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/29/24] 
• Frequent Fox guest and chief architect of Trump’s travel ban Stephen Miller claimed Trump’s immigration policy was “used to achieve the most secure border in American history" and argued Biden’s refusal to reinstate the same policies is “criminal.” Miller explained, “Joe Biden came into office and willfully terminated every single one of those policies, and he and [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas violated the command in federal law. … They are criminals.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/29/24] 
• Calling the situation a “Biden-made crisis,” Hannity again cited Trump-era immigration policies to deny the need for congressional action to secure the border. [Fox News, Hannity, 2/1/24] 
• Hannity declared, “This bill does absolutely nothing to secure the border. It would be an unmitigated disaster. And by the way, every Republican should strongly be opposed to this.” [Fox News, Hannity, 2/5/24] 
• Hannity again hosted Miller to rail against the border deal: “This bill enshrines the worst policies of Joe Biden. It makes it easier to turn illegal aliens into citizens, and it hamstrings future enforcement.” Miller continued, “It will be the best gift immigration attorneys for illegal aliens and NGOs have ever received.” [Fox News, Hannity, 2/5/24] 
• On Hannity’s show, Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren said the bipartisan border deal amounted to “treason.” She went on to state that every Republican who supports the bill “should have their name on a list and they should never be elected to political office ever again.” [Fox News, Hannity, 2/5/24] 
• Hannity claimed “the disastrous border bill is nothing more than a blatant attempt by Biden and the left to shift the blame for his border crisis squarely on the shoulders of Republicans. This is his and his alone.” [Fox News, Hannity, 2/6/24] 
• Hannity boasted about his influence to kill the bipartisan border deal: “Republican senators wanted to keep all of the details that they were putting in this bill away from people like me, specifically because they knew how bad this legislation is for conservatives.” [Fox News, Hannity, 2/6/24]

Gutfeld! 

• Host Greg Gutfeld dismissed the need for a border bill by claiming Biden could already solve the crisis with the “roughly 90 Trump-era border initiatives he revoked.” Gutfeld mocked, “Joe Biden, at his discretion, could simply order these defendants ejected like a grandchild at a Biden family reunion.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 2/5/24] 
• Gutfeld claimed that the border bill is akin to “a reparation for people who don’t even live here.” In the same segment, Fox contributor Mollie Hemingway also attacked the bill’s foreign security aid for Ukraine as “a joke”: “I have been in politics for a long time, I have seen a lot — I have never seen anything as offensive as what they're trying to do with this sham border bill.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 2/5/24] 
• Gutfeld complained, “The fact is we don’t even need this bill — Joe has the power to secure the southern border through executive action and enforce the laws already on the books, but he won’t.” He then accused Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) of threatening, “If you don't do this, we will have World War III.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 2/6/24] 

Fox News at Night

• In a segment called “Common Sense Department,” host Trace Gallagher said, “The Fox News at Night Common Sense Department is somewhat confused that President Biden wants Congress to give him the quote, ‘authority and funding to secure the border.’” Gallagher continued, “The president surely knows he already has the authority to secure the border, right? It’s called an executive order.” [Fox News, Fox News at Night, 1/29/24]