Today, U.S. Rep. Val Demings (FL-10) released the following statement on President Trump's national address:
Said Rep. Demings, "While the government remains shut down and hundreds of thousands of American families worry about making ends meet without a paycheck, President Trump tonight offered nothing new, only more fear-mongering and the continuation of a self-inflicted crisis.
"The only crisis on the border is the one that President Trump has created by falsifying reports to instill fear, imprisoning children and separating families, and failing to hire enough officers to staff ports of entry.
"The President couldn't get Mexico to pay for his wall. He couldn't get Congress to pick the pockets of the American people. The GOP, which could have passed wall funding at any time over the past two years, knew it was an unreasonable idea.
"Congress has already agreed on a bipartisan deal to fund the government. President Trump rejected it, opting to govern by temper tantrum. It's time for the president to stop holding the American people hostage. Families deserve real bipartisan solutions to get our country working again."
Background
The Department of Homeland Security is one of the agencies shut down by President Trump.
The administration has chosen to not spend huge quantities of border security funding allocated by Congress.
There are 2,100 officer vacancies at U.S. Ports of Entry.
More undocumented people are leaving the United States than entering it.
According to the Washington Post, as of July 2017, the State Department said there was "no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States."
The wall is a fake public-relations solution that would not improve our safety, be easy to climb, require constant maintenance, cost billions of dollars, damage our environment, and require usurping land from American landowners, Native American Tribes and protected federal lands.