Chairman Green Slams the Biden Administration Ahead of the End of Title 42: “They’re Not Prepared”
May 10, 2023
Chairman Green Slams the Biden Administration Ahead of the End of Title 42: “They’re Not Prepared”
Joins Fox News and Fox Business to discuss the Biden-Mayorkas border crisis and House Republicans’ solution
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ahead of the end of Title 42 on Thursday at 11:59 PM, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) joined Fox News @ Night, Fox & Friends, and Fox Business’ Varney & Co. to discuss the chaos that will follow and House Republicans’ solution, the Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2), which will be on the House floor today and tomorrow. Read highlights of his interviews below.
On the end of Title 42 this week, Chairman Green said:
“[The Biden administration’s] best idea here is to send 1,500 more military personnel to the border, and all they are going to do is process more people into the country. The problem here is that they’ve created incentives; they’ve done away with policies and, basically, it’s all catch-and-release. All of their solutions just double down on that.”
“The problem is that this president hasn’t really been executing Title 42 in any full capacity. You can look at the percentages of people who were returned under [Title] 42, and it started to decline significantly as soon as he came into office, and now it’s down to about 40-50 percent.”
“You look at the number of dead migrants found on ranchers’ farms—it has quadrupled. You look at the number of unaccompanied migrants that are unaccounted for—85,000, that’s a rough guess. It could be many more, and we now have articles from the New York Times showing that these children are being basically used as slave labor. It’s insane, and this was all decisions, policies made by this administration. Mayorkas, in that specific case, took away the background checks for sponsors for UACs [Unaccompanied Alien Children].”
On why House Republicans are calling on the Senate to pass and for the Biden administration to sign into law the Secure the Border Act (H.R.2), Chairman Green said:
“The hope is just like [with] the D.C. crime bill, we can educate the American people. The footage from El Paso and from the border right now is going to put pressure on the administration—they’ve got to do something.”
“That’s specifically why we put the bill on [the House floor] for today, votes tomorrow, to put pressure on the administration, and that they’ll actually secure our border. Right now, it’s wide open.”
“They’re not prepared. […] The problem is that they are not turning people away. Those 1,500 soldiers are just going to process more people, which contributes to the overall incentive.”
“Basically, it is blanket catch-and-release now. All of their plans to address Title 42 only double down on that removal of any disincentive and the actual creation of more incentives for people to come. So, it is only going to get worse—we are talking millions of people. Five million encounters, 1.4 million gotaways so far under this administration. Now with[out] Title 42, it could be another 5-7 million people in the next two years of this administration.”
On the state of the Southwest border leading up to the end of Title 42 and House Republicans’ solution, Chairman Green said:
“When I was down there just weeks ago, someone [crossed] from Russia. 160 countries are pouring into our Southern border, they’re overwhelming our border cities, and they’re overwhelming cities all across America. It’s absurd, and Mayorkas is just asleep at the wheel.
“What’s happening right now, what Fox News and others are reporting–even some of the more liberal networks are waking up to this crisis, they’re reporting it. The American people need to be made aware of it, and they need to call the administration.”
“We are voting tomorrow on a bill that will fix this. Interestingly enough, if they would just enforce the laws on the books, go back to the policies they canceled when they got into office and reinstate ‘Remain in Mexico,’ reinstate the agreements with Central American countries, and this will get fixed tomorrow. But they don’t want to stop this. This is intentional.”