We may have entered a new year, but we’re dealing with the same Washington, D.C. swamp.
Congress recently cut a deal for topline spending figures that will add $70 billion to our $34 trillion national debt. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a victory lap on the Senate floor this week celebrating that “not a nickel was cut” from the deal. The Democrats received all the funding they wanted, but not a penny was allocated to secure our southern border.
That’s why I signed the Immigration Accountability Project’s 2024 Border Crisis Member Pledge. The pledge says I will not vote to fund the government until our southern border is secure. I will not fund a woke, weaponized and wasteful government that is targeting the American people and allows dangerous criminals, child traffickers, and fentanyl traffickers to pour into our country and endanger American families.
While we all celebrated the holidays, Customs and Border Protection encountered 302,000 illegal immigrants crossing our southern border in December. That number sets a record for the most encounters in a single month in United States history, and the record-shattering doesn’t end there.
Since Oct. 1st , more than 785,000 illegal immigrants have crossed our border, which is more than three times the population of Huntsville, Alabama’s largest city. And President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas’ only solution to this crisis is to tell the American people that our border is secure.
House Republicans passed the solution, H.R. 2, back in May. This legislation would force the Biden administration to restart construction of Trump’s border wall, deploy the most updated technology to our borders, increase the number of Border Patrol agents and provide bonus pay, strengthen laws to protect unaccompanied children, and end abuse of executive branch immigration authority. Majority Leader Schumer and President Biden refuse to consider it. Republicans have a way to get them to the negotiating table – shut down the border or shut down the government.
In the last three years of the Biden Administration, America has encountered 8 million illegal immigrants at our southern border, been unable to locate 85,000 migrant children, experienced more than 150,000 fentanyl deaths, had over 300 people on the terrorist watch list enter our country illegally, and seen more than 2,000 immigrants die while trying to cross our border. If Republicans have a card in our hand that could force Democrats to the table on an issue that is putting thousands of lives at risk, we should use it.
If enough Republicans stand with me and sign the Immigration Accountability Project’s 2024 Border Crisis Member Pledge, we can pressure the Democrats to pass H.R. 2, keep the government open, and deliver the change we promised.
Congressman Barry Moore is the U.S. Representative for AL-02 and lives in Enterprise, Alabama with his family. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee and House Agriculture Committee in Congress.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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