Federal lawmakers are once again pushing legislation to overhaul the nation's immigrant detention policies New Jersey's Junior Senator Cory Booker along with two house Democrats have reintroduced the dignity for detained immigrants act it would end mandatory detention for individuals awaiting deportation hearings and ban the use of private for-profit detention centers to house ice detainees as well as increase oversight to improve conditions at detention facilities and prevent abuse the Elizabeth Detention Center is the last facility in New Jersey that still has a contract with ice to house detainees but that contract ends in August meanwhile New Jersey's senior senator this week unveiled a new immigration overhaul plan but he's taking this plan directly to the White House in the hopes of spurring change within the Biden Administration senior political correspondent David Cruz spoke with Senator Menendez about his criticism of the president's policies and how he wants to change them Senator good to see you thanks for taking a few minutes with us the last time we talked you referred to the president as the asylum denier in Chief I feel like this white paper is uh as much as anything an expression of your real frustration with this process no well good to be with you David look the the paper is an attempt to try to get the administration to move in a better more effective more your main way uh and to preserve our nation's history as a nation in which Asylum is the law we say that we're a nation of laws Asylum is a law of the United States so basically instead of just complaining I I developed a action plan a white paper which I've shared with the administration it has four pillars creating new legal Pathways and extending existing Pathways to reduce pressure at the southern border to include increase resources of the border to process Asylum Seekers and remove people without legal claims to stay in the United States to expand humanitarian assistance and develop financing to better integrate uh refugees and migrants in countries across the Americas there are 20 million people in the Western Hemisphere here in Latin America and the Caribbean who are displaced who are seeking Asylum who are refugees it's a hemispheric challenge we need to work with the other countries in the hemisphere to be part of meeting that challenge and lastly it's to elevate our efforts to counter transnational criminal organizations that are involved in human smuggling and trafficking all of these actions can largely be taken place by the administration through executive functions we talked to several immigrants rights Advocates and they say that they're really concerned about the tone of the president's rhetoric when he refers to immigration he kind of defaults to discussions of gangs and and uh fentanyl uh smuggling have the Republicans hijacked the narrative here and forced the the president to the right on this issue well look I think that my uh Republican colleagues or at least many of them want the issue more than they want a solution if they want a solution you know our plan offers them a solution including many of the things they want to see uh like accelerated Asylum processing at the southern border uh but if they want the issue uh then of course nothing will satisfy them I re I regret that the administration instead of standing up for its core beliefs and where President Biden has always been in his career in the United States Senate uh has followed them down that rabbit hole and the the biggest problem with all of that is not only the politics of it it's that we don't achieve success at the southern border of controlling it of regularizing passage of making sure that we don't have emerging circumstances at the border that's that's the biggest uh you know problem with where the president's been at in follow Republicans down the view that every enforcement entity is going to be the only way to solve the problem we saw at the height of all of the Trump initiatives people still came towards the southern border we have to stand the tide of why they come in the first place all right no easy answers Senator Bob Menendez thanks for taking a few minutes appreciate it good to be with you [Music] [Music]