Chairman Green: Republicans are Delivering on Border Security

Joins House Leadership to Announce Border Security Package

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) joined House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Homeland Security Vice Chairman Michael Guest (R-MS), Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) to announce a border security package that includes the Border Reinforcement Act of 2023, which was passed out of Committee on Thursday.

Watch Chairman Green’s full remarks here.

Read highlights of his remarks below.

“In 2020, the nation saw just under half a million people come into the country. In 2021, almost two million, four times the year prior. […] What happened? We didn’t cut the budget. We didn’t suddenly decrease the size of Customs and Border Protection. What Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas did is they did away with 89 policies of previous presidents. That was the difference. They allowed the return agreements with other countries to completely expire, so that ICE has no way to send people back home because the agreements have expired. This was intentional.

“When I got the gavel, we took a bunch to the border with boot camp, and we had a hearing on the border where [Border Patrol] Chief Ortiz admitted that Secretary Mayorkas’ statement that we had operational control of the Southern border was a lie. In fact, he went on to say five of our nine sectors of our Southwest border are under the control of the drug cartels. That’s the chief of the Border Patrol.

“These decisions made by Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas have facilitated the drug cartels using the strategy of overwhelming the crossing sites, tying up Customs and Border Protection and then sliding the drugs around them in the thinned out rural areas. And [Attorney General] Merrick Garland agreed to that in front of the Senate. Secretary Mayorkas was asked, ‘Do you know about this strategy?’ And Secretary Mayorkas said, ‘No, I didn’t know.’ The Secretary of Homeland Security doesn’t know the major strategy of the drug cartels. He admitted it in the United States Senate.

“We made a commitment to secure our border, and you heard about Jim [Jordan’s] bill. This morning, at 3:00 AM, the Republican Members of the Committee of Homeland Security […] culminated the work of several months of stubby pencil backroom work, figuring out just the language that would get the job done and deliver for the American people—and we did that.

“There are many aspects of this bill. We took the money that hasn’t been spent, we’re going to build [at least] 900 miles of wall, we’re going to clear cedar and Carrizo cane that’s blocking the view of Border Patrol. We’re going to take care of those Border Patrol agents. 17 suicides in a force of 17,000, because they’re overwhelmed with this open border. Does Biden care? No.”

“There are many other aspects [like] technology, license plate readers, authorizations for the Border Patrol to do things they need to do to do their job. It has been an honor to work with the Members of this Committee. I owe it to every single Member; we owe it to every single Member of this Committee for doing the hard work that they’ve done. And it’s been an honor to work with them and get that bill done.”

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