WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) delivered the following opening statement in a hearing to examine how the policies and actions of the Biden-Harris administration sparked the unprecedented border crisis that began in early 2021, how the crisis has undermined the safety and security of communities across our country, and how these unlawful, open-borders, and anti-enforcement policies have impacted DHS law enforcement. Watch his opening statement below and the full hearing live here.

Watch Chairman Green’s full opening statement.

As prepared for delivery:

President Joe Biden, his appointed “border czar”, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have sparked the worst border crisis in American history. Looking back over nearly four years, Americans have witnessed a national security, public safety, and humanitarian disaster at our borders. And every day, we continue to feel its devastating consequences.

The flood of inadmissible aliens across our sovereign borders has been unprecedented. Since Biden and Harris’ first full month in office, Customs and Border Protection has recorded more than 10.3 million encounters of inadmissible aliens nationwide, compared to 3.1 million between Fiscal Years 2017-2020. In addition, there have been more than two million known gotaways on their watch—illegal aliens who are at large in our communities, whose intentions and backgrounds are completely unknown.

Encounters at our ports of entry have exploded, from roughly one million between Fiscal Years 2017-2020 to more than three million since the start of Fiscal Year 2021.

That’s largely because the Biden-Harris administration has devised a host of unlawful, mass-parole programs that encourage otherwise-inadmissible aliens to cross at our land, sea, and airports instead of between them.

This solves the terrible optics problem of overcrowded Border Patrol facilities and overwhelmed agents, but the end result is the same—tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens released into the interior every month. It’s just a shell game—a sleight of hand to skew the numbers.

It’s like when a parent tells their children to clean their room, only to find the mess simply moved from the floor to the closet. Things might look cleaner, but the underlying problem has not been addressed. So it is with the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies.

Other numbers further highlight the crisis. Tragically, more than 200,000 Americans have died from fentanyl that has been smuggled across the Southwest border by criminal cartels. Border Patrol arrests of illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds have more than doubled on Biden and Harris’ watch, from around 22,000 to more than 53,000. Apprehensions of Chinese nationals crossing the Southwest border illegally exceed 36,000 just this fiscal year—more than FY07-20 combined. These are major national security and public safety concerns.

This unprecedented surge across our borders was made possible by the Biden-Harris administration. In 2019 and 2020, Biden and Harris both declared they supported decriminalizing border crossings. Biden said that suspected criminal illegal aliens arrested by local law enforcement should not be handed over to ICE. Harris called building more border wall system “a stupid use of money.” Biden encouraged illegal aliens to “surge” to our border to flood our asylum system with illegitimate claims.

Their open-borders and anti-enforcement rhetoric soon became reality.

Upon assuming office, Biden and Harris worked immediately to end effective border-security policies and to dismantle decades of bipartisan immigration enforcement.

For example, Biden and Harris have gutted detention. For example, in Fiscal Year 2013, the Obama administration detained 91 percent of all illegal aliens—82 percent of them from the time they were encountered until their case was resolved. In Biden and Harris’ first year in office, that 82 percent dropped to just 10 percent.

Removals have also plummeted, from more than 267,000 in Fiscal Year 2019 to around half that number last year, and as low as 59,000 in Fiscal Year 2021. Even worse, removals of criminal aliens plummeted from around 173,000 in Fiscal Year 2019 to just around 70,000 last fiscal year. And just yesterday, prominent border correspondent Ali Bradley reported exclusive ICE figures showing that since the Biden-Harris administration ended Title 42 in May 2023, the administration has only removed around 23 percent of all inadmissible aliens encountered.

Despite the limitations put on them by their leaders, the men and women of CBP and ICE have continued to perform their jobs above and beyond the call of duty, and I commend them for their unwavering service to the nation. Yet they know it is not supposed to be this way.

Today, you will no doubt hear more blame-shifting and excuses by my colleagues across the aisle. But all of it is meant to mislead. You’ll probably hear about the recent drop in illegal border crossings between ports of entry along our Southwest border.

However, this does not account for the thousands of inadmissible aliens coming in daily through ports of entry, nor does it undo the damage done by the millions that have come in over the past three and a half years.

The evidence also suggests no connection between Biden’s recent, loophole-ridden executive order and these new numbers, but rather, stepped-up interior enforcement by Mexico. And as we saw recently, that enforcement is waning, with the Mexican government now busing CBP One appointment holders from southern Mexico to our own Southwest border.

Coming almost four years into this self-inflicted crisis, the administration’s action is much too little, and FAR too late. For numerous families across this country, like those of Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, and Jocelyn Nungaray, the damage will never be undone.

You certainly won’t hear how the Senate’s border bill, which just a single Republican helped write, would have made the crisis worse.

It would have only allowed tough restrictions once encounters passed several thousand per day, mandated mass releases through “noncustodial detention,” improperly expanded the use of parole, and more. It was a terrible bill, one that was roundly criticized by the former heads of CBP, the Border Patrol, and ICE.

Today’s hearing is about getting the unvarnished truth from Americans who have been forced to live out the Biden-Harris open-borders nightmare in their own lives.

This administration has completely undermined border security, through a host of policies and decisions that have overwhelmed and sidelined the Border Patrol. Biden and Harris have gutted ICE’s ability to conduct immigration enforcement in the interior, making it harder to detain and remove illegal aliens, including criminals. And innocent Americans are suffering as a result. The story you will hear from Patty Morin today is sadly just one of tens of thousands of stories of pain, suffering, and preventable tragedy.

What you will hear from Jim Desmond is the account of a major American city that has been overwhelmed and overrun.

It does not have to be like this. Later today, my Committee will release a comprehensive report documenting in even more painful, objective detail how Biden, Harris, and their administration have thrown open our borders, and the chaos that has resulted. I encourage all Americans to read it at homeland.house.gov.

As we continue to witness Biden and Harris’ resistance to doing anything meaningful about this disaster, we have to ask—why? Why did they let this crisis take place and why have they let it continue? I hope this hearing provides some answers, and inspires President Biden and Vice President Harris to do what they so far have refused to—end this crisis and secure our borders.

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