Restore Order at Our Southern Border

Our nation is experiencing an unprecedented crisis at our southern border – a place that is supposed to be the bedrock of maintaining order, fairness, and security for the American people. Instead, President Biden opened the flood gates to illegal immigration on day one of his presidency by reversing the “Catch and Release” and “Remain in Mexico” policies. These dangerous decisions have threatened the safety of our country – and he is showing no signs of stopping.

The Biden administration announced earlier this month that the official end to Title 42 would be May 23, 2022. Title 42 is a public health order from the CDC, originally issued in March 2020 by President Trump, used to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by blocking immigrants from countries with outbreaks of communicable diseases from entering the United States. This order has been deemed as extremely effective, with border officials using it more than one million times over the past two years.

The decision to end a policy that provides support for our Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents to effectively do their job and keep our nation secure is simply out-of-touch with our current crisis. Last month had the highest number of migrant encounters in March in over two decades. Since Biden took office, over 2.2 million illegal immigrants have been apprehended at our southern border. To put that astronomical number in perspective, that is over half the population of the state of Oklahoma.

Additionally, these staggering numbers pose a severe national security risk. In March, more than 7,000 migrants crossed the border per day on average, which is seven times the amount of apprehensions President Obama’s then-Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary deemed as “crisis level” for authorities. Amidst this chaos, 23 people on the terrorist watch list were caught trying to enter America undetected through our southern border. It’s extremely unsettling to wonder what other threatening people could be entering our country as 2,000 illegal immigrants a day avoid CBP capture.

Unfortunately, by revoking Title 42, Biden’s border crisis is predicted to get even worse. Biden’s own DHS officials have stated this could cause an additional 18,000 encounters per day. There is no question that this fateful decision will further incentivize criminals and drug cartels to keep pouring pounds and pounds of the deadly drug, fentanyl, into America.

It is astonishing that Biden has not only ignored the self-inflicted border crisis but is now actively making it worse. Even members of his own party disagree with his decision to reverse Title 42, clearly proving how far-left and out-of-touch this decision is. Furthermore, less than half of Democrat voters think Biden is handling immigration issues correctly, with only 24% of Independents and 7% of Republicans in support of his efforts.

Americans deserve better. We must take action to restore order, security, and control of our border to reinstate fairness in our immigration system, support our CBP agents, and keep America safe.