John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., said in an interview on Sunday that he has been “impressed so far” by the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis.
During an appearance on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” host Abby Phillip asked Giles how well he thought the administration was handling the growing crisis, with the U.S. now expected to see more migrants at the border than it has in the past 20 years.
“You know, I’ve been the mayor for six years here in Mesa, so I am a veteran of the last border surge. And so we are very nervous about the surge that we see in refugees that are crossing the border. I’ve been impressed so far with this administration. I had an opportunity to talk with [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas about a week ago. I told him the experience that we had a couple of years ago and he was very aware of it,” said Giles, whose city of Mesa is within 200 miles of the U.S-Mexico border.
“We’ve explained to them that there are a lot of compassionate people in our community, faith groups and NGOs that are willing to partner with the federal government to respond to this,” Giles added. “But the cupboards are bare because over the last two years they’ve been asked to shoulder this problem as the federal government really wasn’t capable of doing it without assistance.”
Giles also discussed his support of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill, which passed the Senate without a single Republican vote.
Phillip asked Giles what the $100 million his city would receive meant at this stage in the pandemic.
“Well, Abby, I think it’s obvious to those of us that are here on the ground that the pandemic is not over,” Giles said, noting that there had been no leftover funds following the other relief bills.
“So we are — we have spent and we will spend this money on food, on addressing the huge food insecurity problems that people are experiencing as a result of the pandemic. We’ll spend it on devices so that our children could participate in online school. We’ll spend it on small business grants, on eviction prevention and on utility assistance. And we’ll spend it on putting shots in arms. That’s where this money is going. It’s not going anywhere else,” Giles said.