By Todd Beamon | Tuesday, 14 Jul 2015 07:47 PM

The United States government has done nothing to stop illegal immigration over the last decade and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is reaping the benefits of that in the polls, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan told Newsmax TV on Tuesday.

"People are listening," Buchanan told "Newsmax Prime" host Joe Pags. "They're tired of other folks' words — and whatever you say about Donald Trump, he appears to be a man of action who gets done what he says he's going to do."

Trump topped the list of GOP candidates in the latest USA Today/Suffolk University poll, with 17 percent, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, with 14 percent. His stance against illegal immigration was key to his showing, according to respondents.

"There's no doubt that Mexico uses the United States as a safety valve to get rid of the problems in its own country so they won't explode there," the commentator told Pags.

"They let folks come into our country — and they're not too persnickety about who they let go.

"Trump has really got an issue, and the American people know it. They're upset about what's going on in the border — and he's the one that's raising Cain about it," Buchanan said.

"What Trump is saying is basic common sense: We've got people walking into our country. We don't know who they are. Some of them are criminals. Some of them commit horrible deeds — and they're walking in here from a neighboring country that's not doing its job in helping us stop it and I want it stopped, and people understand that."

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pat.../14/id/657070/