Rogers: Trump Administration is Acting Alone to Manage Border Crisis, House Democrats Have Done Nothing
Top Border Security Republican Backs Administration’s Response to Border Crisis

 

WASHINGTON – Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, today backed the Trump Administration’s efforts to secure the border, in a speech on the House floor as part of debate on S. J. Res. 54, which would reject the Trump Administration’s border security emergency declaration.

Rogers remarks, as prepared for delivery:
In the last year, nearly one million migrants have attempted to illegally cross our southwest border. Let me put that in perspective for you. One million is more than the population of Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming. One million is approximately the population of Austin, Texas; San Jose, California; and Jacksonville, Florida.

For months, migrant families and children arrived at the border in droves, thanks to sophisticated smuggling operations. Coyotes told vulnerable populations that a child was their ticket into the United States — whether it was their child or not. The massive groups of migrants overwhelmed our Customs and Border Protection facilities, leading to overcrowding and unacceptable conditions for migrants and law enforcement alike.

At the high-water mark of the crisis, more than 50 percent of Border Patrol agents were pulled off the front lines to process, transport, and care for the record number of migrant children and families.  The men and women of CBP have worked hard to manage this crisis while Democrats in the House were busy talking about the “Fake Emergency” at our border.

The Administration has taken extraordinary steps like the Migrant Protection Protocols, DNA testing to catch child traffickers, and implemented new rules to reduce abuse of our asylum laws.  While the President is doing everything in his power to manage the crisis, House Democrats have done nothing.

They steadfastly refuse to do anything to fix our broken immigration system, protect vulnerable families and children from human smugglers, reduce the asylum backlog, or expand migrant processing and long-term housing. 

Now they want to take away the President’s authority to respond to this crisis and prevent another one from happening. What a duplicitous disgrace.

 

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