President Joe Biden is getting closer and closer to making America the only nation in the world without borders. This month, he poured more fuel on the fire raging at our border by getting rid of Title 42, a Trump administration policy that gave border security personnel the authority to block illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. if they pose a public health risk. At one illegal immigrant detainment facility I visited in the Rio Grande Valley last year, Border Patrol officials told me that Title 42 allows them to deport at least half of the thousand or so occupants of that facility back to their home countries in Central America; without Title 42, all would be released inside the United States.
This is the most reckless example yet of his years-long efforts to do away with meaningful border security. During a 2020 presidential debate, he unbelievably proclaimed that as president, he would “make sure that … we immediately surge to the border all those people who are seeking asylum.” No wonder there were tens of thousands of illegal immigrants waiting on the Mexican side of the border, ready to enter the U.S. the moment Title 42 expired.
By encouraging illegal immigrants to flood the border and working around the clock to dismantle President Donald Trump’s effective border policies, he’s intentionally trying to overwhelm – and ultimately break – our immigration system. He knows that, thanks to his policies, our migrant processing facilities will be unable to keep up with the massive influx of illegal immigrants. As a result, our brave Border Patrol agents could be forced to release thousands of illegal immigrants into America, without any way of tracking them.
Since even before he took office, Biden has ignored warnings by his own party and career U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials that undoing Trump’s border policies – including Title 42 – would quickly overwhelm our immigration system. U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, said earlier this month that, “The Biden administration had two years to prepare for this and did not do so. … It will be a humanitarian crisis because we’re not prepared.” Days before Title 42 expired, Biden even admitted that the border will be “chaotic for a while.” It’s unacceptable that Biden is intentionally inflicting harm on our nation just so he can advance his radical agenda.
Like the majority of Americans, I’m outraged over the state of our border. Since Biden took office, there have been more than 5 million illegal crossings of our southern border - that’s nearly the population of the great state of Missouri. There are also significant national security concerns, as the number of suspected terrorists caught trying to cross the border has skyrocketed, rising from fewer than 10 per year under Trump to 98 in 2022 under Biden. And our open borders are also providing a superhighway for Cartels to flood our communities with deadly drugs; Since October 2022, CPB has seized enough fentanyl to kill over 3.1 billion people.
House Republicans are fighting back against Biden’s open-border agenda. On May 11, the same day Title 42 was expiring, I was proud to vote for the Secure the Border Act, which takes important steps to combat the chaos on our border. Whether it’s requiring Biden to restart construction of the border wall, ending catch and release, increasing the number of Border Patrol agents and providing them bonus pay, and more, the legislation will force Biden to get serious about combating illegal immigration. No matter what Biden does next, House Republicans will keep fighting to make our border safe and secure – just like it was under President Trump.
