Lummis: Border Security Comes First and Foremost

Statement

On Friday night of last week, the U.S. House passed two bills to help address the crisis at the border with Mexico. First H.R. 5230 grants supplemental funding to enhance border security including $405 million to the Department of Homeland Security directed to the border and $70 million to deploy National Guard units. The bill also closes loopholes in a 2008 trafficking law that allowed illegal aliens to be released into the U.S. until deportation and ensures that customs and border patrol agents can operate on federal land.

The second bill the House passed, H.R. 5272, defunds the President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order. This prohibition on funding ensures the safe but expeditious deportation of unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally.

U.S. Representative Cynthia Lummis, who voted for both the bills, said they are "the first of several measures that must be taken to secure our border."

"The bills we passed are careful but decisive and will send a clear message to those considering illegally crossing our border: we will not allow it," said Rep. Lummis. "The supplemental funding reinforces quick apprehension and expeditious deportation. The bill's policy of "last in, first out' will send back as quickly as possible the ones who just arrived so they can spread the word that the legal means is the only means of immigrating to America. Defunding DACA also offers clarity where President Obama remains obscure. Let us be clear, border security comes first and foremost."

Source