McConnell Remarks on Biden Administration’s Border Crisis
‘Republicans just spent four years making major headway on the security and humanitarian crises on our border. It took serious policy changes. It took international diplomacy with multiple countries. It took border enforcement. The American people would be better served if the Biden Administration had chosen to build on this progress, instead of rapidly trying to tear it down.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding immigration:
“Just six weeks into unified Democratic government, we already have another crisis brewing on our southern border.
“In January, Customs and Border Protection logged more than 78,000 encounters on our southwest border. More than double the figure from January of 2020.
“Last week, HHS sources told reporters we just logged the busiest February in the history of the Unaccompanied Alien Child program.
“The number of kids turning up on our border with no parents is soaring. And everyone expects the numbers to keep climbing.
“Now the Biden Administration is reportedly planning to reopen the same kinds of emergency shelters over which Democrats vilified the Trump Administration a couple years back.
“Both President Biden and his Secretary of Homeland Security have said this week they don’t think this is a crisis. Not a crisis, they say.
“Well if this isn’t a crisis, with unaccompanied kids pouring in and exceeding capacity amid a pandemic, then I’d sure hate to see one.
“The cause of this emergency is not some mystery. Everyone knows what’s happened.
“This new Administration explicitly campaigned on weakening border security. Six weeks in, they’ve reversed the Remain In Mexico policy, begun letting more people in in a haphazard way, and broadcast confusing mixed messages.
“The L.A. Times says, quote, ‘Biden immigration policy stirs confusion at Mexico border.’ They interviewed one woman who’d crossed the Rio Grande ‘on a smuggler’s raft’ and was only briefly detained before being released into the country. She explained she’d specifically come because of the new Biden Administration. Quote: ‘That gave us the opportunity to come.’
“Another reporter put it this way: ‘The message received in Tijuana and other Mexican border cities was simpl[e]: Joe Biden was now letting people in.’
“We’re not just talking about the fine details of border policy. The big backdrop behind this whole discussion is the sweeping left-wing amnesty plan that the Biden Administration unveiled before they were even sworn in.
“They want to fast-track 11 million illegal immigrants into temporary legal status, then green cards, and then full citizenship.
“The far left loves this approach. But so does a certain cross-section of Big Business.
“There’s a whole lot of cultural power and economic power pushing the liberal vision.
“As for the best interests of American workers — well, that’s not as trendy a cause in certain circles.
“The truth is that it’s not helpful or compassionate to just open our borders.
“It’s not fair to American citizens and workers... but neither is it fair to the people who are being lured into a humanitarian crisis in the middle of a pandemic because they believe this Democratic administration just conspicuously turned on a neon ‘Vacancies’ sign.
“Republicans just spent four years making major headway on the security and humanitarian crises on our border.
“It took serious policy changes. It took international diplomacy with multiple countries. It took border enforcement.
“The American people would be better served if the Biden Administration had chosen to build on this progress, instead of rapidly trying to tear it down.”
Related Issues: Immigration
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