No one answering ‘hard questions’ on 'quantity, quality' of immigrants to let in: Former Trump aide

President Donald Trump's former homeland security adviser said that even with the sharply divided views on immigration in the U.S., few officials in either party want to answer "hard questions" of how many and what kinds of migrants should be allowed in to the country.

The former Trump adviser, Tom Bossert, now an ABC News contributor, told George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday, “The big picture here is very few politicians on both sides of the aisle have ever been willing to answer the hard questions of the quantity, quality and type of person that we're willing to allow into this country above the million legal immigrants that we allow in every year."

"Should we let in 100,000? 500,000? No one wants to answer that hard question,” Bossert said.

Bossert was referring to congressional Democrats' contention that they support comprehensive immigration reform although Congress cannot agree on such a bill.

"They're up there [on Capitol Hill] fighting over e-verify [a program for businesses to confirm employees' eligibility to work] and fighting over how many agricultural workers we need to allow in," but not addressing the broader questions, Bossert said.

The former White House adviser suggested that liberals "want to have compassion, but the compassion and the shortsighted decisions have long-term negative consequences” on immigration.

Bossert also said the U.S. needs to invest in countries such as Guatemala that are racked by violence to help stem the flow of refugees and migrants.

That means putting "real, sustainable, buildable money into the institutional reforms in those three northern-triangle countries -- Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras -- that they need to prevent this plague from coming into America.”