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Chairman Green Issues Statement in Response to President Biden’s State of the Union Address: “Blame-Shifting Unbecoming of the President of the United States, Affront to Co-Equal Branch of Government”

March 7, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This evening, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) released the following statement on President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address:
 
“We all know that President Biden and now-impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have intentionally opened the borders and refused to enforce our laws, all to process as many migrants into the country as possible. Having caused this crisis, he then dared to blame Congress for refusing to go along with these dangerous agenda. This kind of blame-shifting is unbecoming of the president of the United States and an affront to a co-equal branch of government. It is also an insult to the parents in attendance tonight who have lost their children due to this crisis.
 
“This is a crisis of leadership, not resources. The Republican-led House is the only chamber that has passed a legislative solution to this crisis, and it is collecting dust in the Democrat-led Senate. The president should urge the Senate to pass H.R. 2 and commit to signing it into law. He should also, as soon as tomorrow, instruct his administration to reimplement the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, end the abuse of the CBP One app, stop mass parole, and comply with statutory detention mandates.
 
“President Biden’s willful weakness on the border has only compounded other threats to the homeland. The Chinese Communist Party is exerting greater influence, even exploiting our Southwest border. Terror groups have been emboldened by the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and Hamas’ cowardly attacks against Israel. These terror groups have also attempted to exploit our dangerously open border. Furthermore, our nation’s enemies are seeking to take advantage of President Biden’s weakness by targeting dissidents and American citizens on U.S. soil. While he paid lip service to many of the threats facing our country, his refusal to take accountability for creating or worsening many of them shows that he is not up to the task of keeping Americans safe.”
 
THE BORDER CRISIS:
 
In May 2023, the House of Representatives passed the Secure the Border Act of 2023 (H.R. 2), legislation crafted by the House Homeland Security, House Judiciary, and House Foreign Affairs Committees. Read the bill text here. 
 
House Republicans have consistently endorsed providing the tools and resources that DHS law enforcement personnel need to accomplish their mission:

  • If passed by the Senate and signed into law, H.R.2 would fund a Border Patrol force of roughly 22,000 agents, the number Border Patrol leaders say they need and about 3,000 more than they currently have. The Biden-Mayorkas supplemental would fund less than half of the 3,000 agents needed.
  • Congress has increased CBP’s funding for operations and support, as well as procurement and construction, by $2.98 billion since Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, while increasing ICE operations and support funding by $860 million. 
  • House Republicans’ FY2024 Homeland Security appropriations bill increased border security funding above President Biden’s proposed budget. Read more from Chairman Green on why the supplemental is not the proper response to the self-inflicted crisis.
  • Meanwhile, in his FY2024 budget, President Biden requested a 10% cut, roughly $1.8 billion, to Customs and Border Protection’s Operations and Support budget compared to what Congress enacted in FY2023. ICE operations also went on the chopping block, with President Biden slashing the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations budget nearly $700 million—a 15% reduction from FY2023 enacted levels.

On the other hand, this administration has routinely requested less detention space. The decreasing trend from the prior administration is striking:

  • FY 2018: $2.7 billion for 51,379 beds
  • FY 2019: $2.8 billion for 52,000 beds
  • FY 2020: $2.7 billion for 54,000 beds 
  • FY 2021: $3.1 billion for 60,000 beds (the last Trump budget)
  • FY 2022: $1.8 billion for 32,500 beds
  • FY 2023: $1.4 billion for 25,000 beds
  • FY 2024: $1.3 billion for 25,000 beds
  • DHS claimed in FY2022 and FY2023 budget requests that “a reduction in detention capacity level will not impede ICE’s ability to apprehend, detain, and remove noncitizens that present a threat to national security, border security, and public safety.” 

Leading up to the House of Representatives’ impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas in February 2024, the Committee conducted a comprehensive five-phase investigation into the causes, costs, and consequences of the border crisis, totaling nearly 400 pages:

THE ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIME CRISIS:

  • Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested last Friday and charged with the murder of 22-year-old University of Georgia student Laken Riley. Ibarra entered the country illegally in September 2022 and was subsequently released by CBP into the interior of the United States. Ibarra was arrested in New York City on September 14, 2023 and was issued a citation in October 2023 for shoplifting in Athens, GA. 
  • This month, in Campbell County, Virginia, Renzo Mendoza Montes, a Venezuelan national, was arrested in connection with a sexual assault on a minor. Mendoza is in the U.S. illegally after being processed and released by Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas on September 2, 2023.
  • In February 2024, illegal alien Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint. He was later arrested on February 25, 2024 after robbing a man at knifepoint. 
  • In May 2021, a Brazilian national wanted for aggravated homicide of a minor in Brazil entered the United States, was released, and was not arrested by ICE until October 2023.

With 1.8 million known gotaways and a lack of available information sharing from many countries of origin in order to properly vet and screen inadmissible aliens, there is no telling how many dangerous criminals have slipped into the country in the last three years. 

THE NATIONAL SECURITY CRISIS:

The Committee is also conducting rigorous oversight of the Biden administration’s response to a myriad of threats to the homeland, including but not limited to those associated with the historic border crisis. Many of the Committee’s oversight requests from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have still not been fully satisfied:


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