Ignoring a Crisis

Press Release

Last week while appearing at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, President Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed, "the border is secure." Anyone who has read a newspaper or watched a newscast could tell you it isn't, yet the Biden Administration insists it is. Enough is enough; they cannot ignore the border crisis.

In the month of August alone, 208,887 people were encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection illegally trying to enter our county at the southern border. Compared to August of 2020 this is an increase of more than 300 percent. In fact, border apprehensions have reached a 21-year high, with more than 200,000 in both July and August. More than 43,000 illegal immigrants were released into our country in August. This is 43,000 more than during President Trump's final month in office, when only 17 were released into the U.S.

To make matters worse, Secretary Mayorkas admitted that 12,000 of the Haitian migrants at the southern border were released into the U.S. without being tested or vaccinated for COVID-19. At a time when the Biden Administration is threatening massive fines for employers who don't mandate vaccinations for their workforce, it is horribly inconsistent to be releasing untested, unvaccinated people into communities.

Securing our nation's borders and ensuring the safety and well-being of not only Americans, but those attempting to enter our country illegally is too important to ignore. Because of this, I recently cosponsored H.R. 4828, the Border Security for America Act. This bill would return to proven, successful strategies for securing our border and enforcing our immigration laws. It includes the resumption of border wall construction, investments in advanced monitoring technologies, while also bolstering resources and personnel for federal law enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol agents, and support staff.

Instead, the Department of Homeland Security is taking the approach opposite from responsibly securing our border and managing legal entry. This week, the Biden Administration announced their plans to terminate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) policy, also known as "Remain in Mexico." It required migrants to remain outside the U.S. while waiting for adjudication of their cases, helping ensure illegal immigrants weren't released into the U.S. where they could evade immigration officials while ostensibly awaiting a hearing of their case. This change is irresponsible and will only encourage more migrants. I strongly urge the administration to reverse their plans and reinstate MPP.

We are a nation of immigrants, and the administration must act now to restore the integrity of our immigration process. They cannot allow our southern border to be a free-for-all when there are effective, legal avenues to enter our nation. There is no doubt they have a crisis on their hands, and it is well past time for the President and Vice President to acknowledge it and take action to secure our border.

Source