{UAH} THE CHAOS AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER

Witnessing the Biden border crisis firsthand

by Rep. Greg Murphy

 

April 19, 2021 12:00 AM

For years, the Democratic Party’s mantra has been, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” If there were not a crisis, they would manufacture one. Such is the case now with our southern border.

With President Joe Biden’s elimination of the Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy, the southern border of the United States has turned into a human turnstile. In March alone, more than 172,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended at the border, a nearly two-decade high. In addition, nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children were taken into custody, which is the most the U.S. has ever seen in a month and a 275% increase from the same time last year.

Despite these facts, the Biden-Harris administration continues to call the unprecedented numbers of illegal immigrants pouring across the border a “challenge,” not a crisis. Regardless of its misdirection, the Biden-Harris administration has created a humanitarian crisis and, at the same time, a threat to national security.

On the campaign trail, Biden told prospective illegal immigrants they would be welcome under his administration. Thus, as Customs and Border Protection statistics demonstrate, as soon as Biden took the oath of office in January, the floodgates opened with individuals wearing Biden-Harris shirts beginning their journey to this country.

Border Patrol agents have been overwhelmed and, instead of guarding our border, have been reassigned to be processing agents and social workers, leaving our borders dangerously unguarded. A 25-acre containment complex had to be built in three weeks just to handle the overflow in one small section of the Texas border. At this point, individuals from more than 61 countries have now been apprehended crossing our border illegally. Over 1,000 previously convicted felons and six individuals on the nation’s terrorist watchlist have been apprehended at the McAllen Custom Station alone.

And these are just the ones we know about. With such gaps created by scarce Border Patrol agents, there is simply no way to know how many have entered the country and not been apprehended nor how many truckloads of drugs and weapons have made their way onto our soil.

More than three weeks ago, Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed “immigration czar” to oversee this crisis, but incredibly, she has yet to visit the border to appreciate the catastrophe her administration has created. On the other hand, dozens of my House and Senate Republican colleagues and I traveled to the Texas border to examine firsthand the consequences of these disastrous policies.

We learned that, tragically, nobody crosses from Mexico in the U.S. without a drug cartel’s permission and payoff. They are well-refined experts in the transportation of illegal goods and human trafficking. The cartels are strategically flooding certain zones of the border with migrants to overwhelm overextended agents so they can push record numbers of illicit drugs, which will end up on the streets, through other areas of the border. We were told that in March alone, more than $400 million of drugs came across the border. The opioid epidemic, which we had made such great progress in fighting here in the U.S., now may have our gains erased and its overdoses increased.

More than a year ago, this nation shut down our businesses, closed our schools, and forced us into isolation to slow the spread of COVID-19. Many individuals have gone bankrupt, and many of our youth have lost a year’s education. Restrictions on citizens permeated every part of our existence. Visitors cannot get into this country legally unless they have a negative COVID-19 test. Yet, despite us being in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century, thousands of COVID-19-positive migrants are now spreading the virus into this country.

We require people who legally travel to the U.S. from foreign countries to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test, yet the Biden-Harris administration has thrown these regulations out the window for our southern border. With the feared “fourth surge,” the administration is now pushing human viral vectors into all corners of this nation while we are still captive to masks and social distancing. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s COVID-19 czar, has also finally admitted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines are not being followed at the border, risking the health and welfare of this nation’s citizens and as well as those working at the border.

It is simply beyond comprehension that the Biden-Harris administration, in its hatred for the previous administration, would simply disregard the rule of law and then pretend that it has not caused a humanitarian crisis and utter chaos. It has placed the needs of noncitizens over those of citizens in this nation. While we certainly have challenges in immigration, there is a legal and fair pathway toward citizenship in this country. The Biden-Harris administration has allowed drug cartels, who only know extortion, murder, and intimidation, free rein on our southern border.

While many did not like President Donald Trump’s personality, his administration’s immigration policy was working. It had the buy-in of the Central American nations and Mexico. It is time to put partisan politics aside and return to those policies.

Rep. Greg Murphy represents North Carolina's 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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