Ex-Rep. Mondaire Jones backed radical border policies before changing tune for NY comeback bid, GOP foe says
The border crisis is emerging as a hot issue for the House seat in the Hudson Valley’s 17th District, and Dem ex-Congressman Mondaire Jones’ prior extreme lefty positions on it could come back to haunt him.Jones backed lax borders and criminal-migrant amnesty during his previous stint in Congress before calling for tougher border security measures during his comeback bid to topple first-term Republican Rep.Mike Lawler in the district, which includes parts of Westchester and Rockland counties, records show.While in office, Jones co-signed a letter promoting the “No Border Wall Coalition” that demanded the removal of military personnel from the US-Mexico border region and advocated for the take-down of barriers such as razor wire.“The continued military presence at the border threatens your vow to restore America’s moral and strategic standing on the international plane,” said a March 8, 2021, letter sent to President Biden and co-signed by Jones.In a Facebook post just weeks earlier, Jones also had blasted the US Supreme Court for letting former President Trump “get away with” building a wall to help secure the border as well as impose a ban on immigration from Muslim countries.
He voted against Republican-sponsored amendments to stop gang members and sex offenders from obtaining a path to citizenship, too — including migrants from the Tren de Aragua gang that is currently terrorizing residents of New York.Jones also previously blasted funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and called the border-control agency a “racist institution” whose agents commit “unimaginable cruelty” along the border.“The cruelty is the point.And the fact that the House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, gave $1.4 billion to #ICE is cause for soul-searching.
We have got to do better as a party,” Jones said in a June 6, 2019, statement on X when he first ran for Congress.On February 3, 2021, Jones, who is black, said, “We’re j...