A Biden Administration Border Stand-Down Would Be A Disaster

Floor Speech

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding border security:

"In 2021, the Biden Administration's border crisis set a record. We saw the most arrests that Customs and Border Protection ever reported in a single year on the southern border. As the Washington Post put it at the time, illegal border crossings, "skyrocketed in the months after President Biden took office.'

"Well, the humanitarian and security crisis has only worsened. Last month was the busiest February for CBP migrant encounters in over two decades, exceeding February 2021 by 64 percent. And intelligence officials are reportedly "bracing' for even an even steeper surge.

"The left spent years calling on Washington Democrats to "abolish ICE'. On the campaign trail, President Biden signaled support for subsidizing healthcare for illegal immigrants. And once in office, the Administration spent months seemingly more interested in policing government terminology than policing our actual border.

"The Vice President, ostensibly tasked with leading the White House's border security efforts, seemed keen to travel anywhere but the border.

"When Democrats' approach left border facilities overwhelmed, the Administration diverted billions of dollars away from pandemic response funds to cover for their crisis.

"To prevent their border crisis from getting even worse, the Administration has leaned heavily on an emergency authority that was originally invoked by the previous Administration due to COVID. CBP has now used temporary Title 42 permission more than 1 million times to avoid releasing migrants into the interior of the United States.

"You might think that the Biden Administration would have used the time afforded by this stopgap to actually hash out a strategy to secure the border. They have not. No solutions in sight.

"But now, unbelievably, the Administration is reportedly on the cusp of caving to woke pressure and lifting the Title 42 authorities altogether.

"This move would take our border from its current state of chaos into a whole new level of utter meltdown.

"Democrats say they're concerned about new COVID variants and may want more COVID funding, yet they want to declare the pandemic over and finished at our southern border?

"But more broadly, why on Earth are Democrats accepting the far-left premise that we should only enforce immigration laws during a once-in-a-century pandemic?

"Well, in the near term, it would be wildly reckless for Democrats to simply stand down and let the floodgates open.

"Such a policy would be terrific news for human traffickers and drug cartels. It would be terrible news for the American people."

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