04.28.22

“A Total Abdication” on the Southern Border

WASHINGTON, D.C.U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the crisis at our southern border:

“Yesterday, Secretary Mayorkas testified, ‘we will not lose operational control of the border.’ But of course, the truth is they already have.

“The Secretary’s own Customs and Border Protection personnel are struggling to keep up with the massive numbers. Only halfway through the fiscal year, they’ve already encountered a million people trying to enter our country illegally. And that doesn’t count all the people they never caught.

“But now, President Biden wants to rip away the one remaining band-aid preserving any semblance of law and order. He is cancelling the pandemic authorities that let CBP immediately turn people around and send them back home.

“This week, the Administration put out a laughable excuse for a new border security plan.

“In this new memo, Secretary Mayorkas says he aims to have a total capacity to hold 18,000 illegal immigrants in custody at one time.

“Here’s the problem:

“That is the number of illegal immigrants that some CBP officials fear we could soon be seeing every single day.

“Let me say that again. The Administration hopes they’ll soon be able to hold 18,000 people total in custody… while the experts warn we could soon have 18,000 new arrivals every single day.

“Perhaps that’s why the second main point in this Mayorkas memo is this: ‘moving with deliberate speed to mitigate potential overcrowding at Border Patrol stations.’

“If you translate that from Washington speak into plain English, I think it means they want to speed up catch-and-release a whole lot faster.

“They don’t have a plan to secure the border. They have a plan to keep the turnstiles greased up and spinning as fast as possible.

“A total abdication. And the opposite of what the American people expect.”

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Related Issues: Senate Democrats, Immigration