Watch: Kirsten Gillibrand Pledges to Release All Illegal Aliens Claiming Asylum into U.S. Communities

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who is running in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary, pledged to enact an open border policy on Sunday, saying that she would release all border crossers and illegal aliens into American communities so long as they claim they are seeking asylum.

During an interview on CBS’s Face The Nation, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said, as president, she would end the detention of all border crossers and illegal aliens, instead, releasing every foreign national arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border into American communities if they are claiming asylum.

“As president of the United States, I would not fund any for-profit prisons, I would not lock up these families, I would have a humane immigration policy where people … would have lawyers and have a proper asylum process,” Gillibrand said.

“I wouldn’t keep them in detention at all,” Gillibrand continued. “I wouldn’t … as president of the United States, I wouldn’t use the detention system at all … if someone is seeking asylum, I would assign them a lawyer.”

When Gillibrand was pressed as to how she would handle the inflow of hundreds of thousands of border apprehensions and crossings set to occur this year, she said no border crossers and illegal aliens claiming asylum would be incarcerated under her watch.

“They don’t need to be incarcerated,” Gillibrand said. “If they’re given a lawyer and given a process, they will follow it. They can go into the community…”

At current rates, experts project there to be 863,000 border apprehensions this fiscal year, though this only counts illegal aliens who are caught at the border and does not include those who successfully cross. Experts predict that potentially half a million illegal aliens will successfully cross the southern border this year, undetected by Border Patrol.

Under Gillibrand’s open border plan, all border crossers and illegal aliens claiming asylum would be allowed to enter the country, freely, with the hope that they arrive in court for their hearing.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.