Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote a letter urging President Joe Biden to allow the press to accompany him to the border next week to have transparency.
In the letter, Cruz mentioned his upcoming trip to the border he is taking along with 14 other colleagues. Cruz called the administration’s immigration policies “radical,” mentioning the current administration’s “policies and rhetoric promises exceedingly lax enforcement and a place to citizenship for every illegal alien,” seeing an influx of “4,500 to 6,000 illegal aliens per day.”
Cruz also emphasized what Jeh Johnson, the former Obama DHS Secretary, said in the past. “I know that 1,000 [apprehensions per day] overwhelms the system, and I cannot begin to imagine what 4,000 a day looks like,” Johnson has said.
“Despite your administration’s refusal to admit that this is a crisis, the American people are beginning to understand the gravity of the situation,” Cruz said. This is why Cruz will be traveling with some of his colleagues to the border this week, “to talk to the brave men and women on the ground who are working every day to stop this crisis and secure the border.
The Texas Republican continued by urging the Biden Administration to allow the press access to the border to show the public “openness and transparency” on what goes on at the border.
Cruz wrote:
But it is not enough for members of the Senate to see what is happening — the American people must see. This is why I requested that members of the media be allowed to join us. But your administration clearly and emphatically refused to offer press access. This is outrageous and hypocritical.”
At the beginning your administration, Press Secretary Jen Psaki stressed the importance of “truth and transparency” and a “deep respect for the role of free and independent press.” At the beginning of the month, Secretary Mayorkas stated that he would adhere to principles od “open and transparency.” But now, when your adminsitation faces a crisis of your own making, you are refusing to allow the very transpaceney you promised and what you demanded from prior administrations.
The Texas Republican stated the administration is hiding the truth from the American people when they are “denying the press the ability to observe, film, and report on the condition at the border is not openness or transparency.”
Over the weekend, Cruz’s office tweeted a few clips regarding the border crisis:
Cruz also tweeted, “The Democrat Party has totally abandoned the working men & woman of our country.” With a video showing, “the radical left now has the power to enact their social agenda.”
Earlier this March, Breitbart News spoke to a senior-level law enforcement source within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who spoke under the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the matter. The source told Breitbart Texas “they received verbal orders from within the agency limiting their ability to speak freely about the growing crisis along the border.”
“The situation with media relations now is night and day compared to the last administration,” the official said. “We have been advised not to speak on immigration issues at the border and to rely on DHS’s Office of Public Affairs and the Whitehouse Press Office to handle messaging.”
Additionally, Breitbart News reported, Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX) Fox News Channel in a recent interview, “I can tell you this, those numbers of people that are being released, they’re purposely withholding that information.”