American talk show host Megyn Kelly has praised Australia’s tough border policies during an interview with a conservative Aussie commentator who failed to mention record-high levels of immigration fuelling housing and cost-of-living crises.
Sky News Australia host Paul Murray joined Kelly on the Megyn Kelly Show last week, and explained Australia’s popular and effective offshore processing system to the former Fox News anchor, who described it as an “important lesson” for the United States.
Murray made distinctiona between legal and illegal immigration several times, saying “you can’t cut the line on immigration” and “you’ve got to come in the front door”.
But he did not tell Kelly that the Australian government’s mass immigration program is causing house prices and rents to go up, putting downward pressure on wages, and has been responsible for persistent inflation and interest rate rises since the end of the Covid pandemic, which was confirmed by the Reserve Bank of Australia last week.
Australia allowed 737,000 immigrants into the country during the last financial year, an increase of 73% and a net gain of 518,000 people, the largest since records began.
Kelly’s interview with Murray focused on the crisis on the US southern border, where illegal immigrants are pouring in at a rate of 300,000 a month.
“Australia is not messing around when it comes to illegal immigration,” Kelly told Murray on her show.
“One of the things that got me interested in this was back in 2022 when they kept out Novak Djokovic, who wouldn’t get the vaccine.
“And then it just led to this in-depth look. Australia in general is no stranger to saying, ‘No, keep the hell out’. They don’t really care.”
She went to suggest a similar approach was needed in the US, where record number of 3,200,000 illegal immigrant encounters were reported in 2023, with the number of illegal immigrants in the US roughly doubling under Joe Biden to 20.2 million.
Murray responded: “If you fill out the paperwork, if you are, you know this amazing to be able to become a citizen. It’ll happen. If you’ve got a skill for our country, that’s fantastic. But otherwise, no. And you needed to send a message.
“And this is sort of the key message that I want to get to Americans is you’ve got to have the idea that you have a country worth protecting by having a border, and you have to draw the line to say it is a privilege to be here, not a right that will be afforded to you if you can find a way to get here.”
Donald Trump has vowed to start the “largest deportation operation in American history” if re-elected later this year.
