Everywhere I go in Texas’ twenty-seventh district, border security is the first and last topic that comes up. CBP has reported over 8 million border encounters since 2021. Given this doesn’t include ‘gotaways,’ the real number is likely much higher. The vast majority of these cases involve cartels running drugs, trafficking victims, or criminal aliens flooding our streets. This is a total disaster, and unfortunately, Texas has been left to bear many of the consequences on our own.
I am gravely concerned and continue relentlessly pushing Congress to use the power of the purse strings and force change. At the same time, it is important for Texans to understand what specific choices led to the chaos we’re seeing at the border. Who is standing in the way of solving the problem? Sadly, that person is President Biden.
To be clear, blame is not enough. Congressional conservatives have taken a number of steps to force Joe Biden’s hand on border security, as we should. We passed H.R. 2, by far the strongest border security package in decades, that would close dozens of existing security loopholes. My team and I have fought for (and passed) multiple policy riders within spending bills, including funds for the southern border wall, defunding Homeland Security policies that encourage open borders, and reducing Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ salary to $0. The House also recently impeached Secretary Mayorkas, in only the second impeachment of a cabinet official in history.
But these steps, while positive, are not the fix-all, nor is the terrible “border bill in name only” that recently came out of the Senate which sends three times more money to Ukraine than it does to the border while failing to implement any serious security measures. The true fix and responsibility lies with President Biden. He has every tool he needs at his disposal to secure our border – the same tools President Trump had when our southern border was exponentially more secure than it is now.
