WASHINGTON, D.C. — Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria from McAllen, TX this morning to talk about what he and other Republican lawmakers are witnessing at the U.S.-Mexico border. Whip Scalise denounced President Biden’s immigration policies for creating the unprecedented surge of illegal immigrants entering the United States, and called out the administration for failing to secure the border which has negatively impacted public health and national security.
Click here or on the image above to view the remarks.
On what Republican lawmakers are seeing at the border:
“If you look at what’s happening on the southern border, we’ve been seeing these reports for months, and more members are going down to the border to bring awareness to what really is going on. Last night, I spent a number of hours with Border Patrol agents. About 10 of my colleagues were there. We asked a lot of questions, but we saw some very alarming things. Somewhere around midnight, we went out to one of the processing facilities where they come in right by the Rio Grande River. And we were there less than an hour and saw dozens of people coming across the border, knowing that the door is wide open because of President Biden’s new policy.
“This is something that President Biden created. He got rid of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. It was a highly effective tool President Trump used to work with Mexico, to keep people seeking asylum on the other side of the border in Mexico while they make those requests. Most of them are denied, by the way. But what’s happening now is they can just walk right across the border if they’ve got young children. By the way, we saw just scores and scores of young children, and I’m talking months old, maybe just a few years old. The sexual assaults, the things that are happening to these kids on, the journey, it’s not only heartbreaking, it’s criminal. And it’s totally preventable. This is something that we are going to continue to go and explore.
“Today, we’re going to go to the Donna Detention Facility. They say now there [are] over 4,000 people crammed into that facility that’s maybe a setup for about 100 people, and we’re in the middle of a pandemic where they’re telling you [that] you can’t go to a lot of your places of business. Restaurants can’t even have 25 percent capacity, but they’ve got over 4,000 people in a facility that’s established for maybe around 100.
“It’s inhumane conditions that President Biden has created. Vice President Kamala Harris, by the way, who he put in charge won’t even come down and see this. It’s so bad, she doesn’t want to be associated with it, yet she’s the person in charge of it on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration. It’s inexcusable.”
On the Biden Administration’s inconsistent policies towards migrants and cartels:
“Absolutely, there’s a humanitarian cost that’s devastating, and there is a physical cost in dollars, as you point out, and there’s no plan for what to do with these people once they come across the border. The families that are coming across know that if you bring a young child, you’re getting a free ticket into America. President Biden has sent the message that America’s border is wide open, and they’re heeding the call. And it’s not just from South and Central American countries.
“At the Donna Detention Facility that we’re going to go see in McAllen, this morning, there [are] over 50 countries represented in that facility with people coming all over — you saw in Yemen some people on the Terrorist Watch List. Again, there [are] numbers of people on the Terrorist Watch List that we know about. The Biden Administration’s trying to conceal that information, from the public, from the press, even from Members of Congress. We’ve asked specific questions, how many people on the Terrorist Watch List have come over because look drug cartels are running the southern border right now.
“They’re making millions of dollars a week, $15 million a day. The drug cartels of Mexico are making off of this smuggling trade, knowing that America’s borders [are] open. They’re the ones running people into the border. So when you have the drug cartels running America’s southern border from Mexico, it is a national crisis. It’s a scandal that was completely created by President Biden’s actions. He can reverse it, by the way. We’re calling on President Biden to come down and see this for himself. Don’t farm it out to Kamala Harris, who won’t come see it for herself, but he needs to reverse the policy. He created this. He can end it.”
On how President Biden’s policies created the crisis at the border:
“Everybody knows what the root cause is, the Border Patrol agents will tell you. The root cause is President Biden’s actions: getting rid of the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, sending out the alarm bells that you can come here, we’re going to let you into America; maybe years from now, you might get a hearing, [but] in the meantime, you have free reign over the country. When they’re telling people that are American citizens they can’t go to their schools still, but you’ve got people just strolling across the border with COVID, and they’ll tell you in many cases, these detention facilities where they’re cramming people in, they’re spreading it to everybody and then they’re putting them on an airplane and sending them to other parts of America.”