McConnell: Let’s Secure Our Country
‘I support the additional border security and disaster aid that the House added to the bill and I will proudly vote for it.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding the need to secure our border and fund the government:
“Yesterday, the House passed an amended version of the continuing resolution to sustain government funding and sent it here for our consideration. In addition to giving the entire federal government the necessary resources to operate into the New Year, this legislation also provides much-needed investments in disaster relief for hard-hit communities and in our national security, particularly the integrity of our borders.
“In my view, this is legislation that would be quite uncontroversial in a more normal political moment -- in a moment when both parties put the obvious national interest ahead of any personal spite for the president. I support the additional border security and disaster aid that the House added to the bill and I will proudly vote for it.
“It’s not a radical concept that the American people’s government should be able to control the people and goods that flow into our country. It’s not a radical concept that physical barriers play an important role in achieving security -- unless there’s a caucus of lawmakers who go to bed at night with their front doors wide open that I’m not aware of. What is radical, what is way out of the mainstream, is this absurd premise of the open-borders Far Left that achieving basic stability and law enforcement on our Southern border is somehow -- in itself -- uncompassionate, or discriminatory, or immoral.
“Fairness and compassion don’t mean only enforcing some of our laws, half-heartedly. Fairness and compassion mean that we fulfill our governing duties for the American people. And if we continue to throw up our hands and tolerate a status quo that is allowing too many drugs and dangerous criminals to travel freely into our land, then this federal government is not doing its duty.
“The facts are clear on this. The need for greater security on our southern border is not some partisan invention. It’s an empirical fact. And the need is only growing. Apprehensions along the border have nearly doubled in the past year. The men and women of the border patrol are encountering greater numbers of gang members and individuals with criminal histories, more family units, more seizures of cocaine and fentanyl.
“This is a real crisis. The implications -- for American communities, for vulnerable children, and for the Border Patrol units that are already stretched thin -- are very real. There’s no bright line of principle that sets this request for border funding apart from similar requests that many Democrats have supported in the past. A lot of them have supported this in the past. There is no sharp distinction between the proposal my friends across the aisle have decided to oppose today and proposals they’ve been happy to endorse in the past.
“The only thing that’s really changed are the political winds way over – way over-- on the Far Left. So let’s not end this year the way we began it -- with another shutdown over the issue of illegal immigration. Remember this back in January? All because the Democrats are unwilling to support common-sense measures to address it. Let’s advance this legislation. Let’s pass it. Let’s finish our work for this year. Let’s secure our country.”
Related Issues: Immigration, Law Enforcement, Opioid Abuse, Homeland Security, Appropriations
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