During an appearance on Mobile, AL radio’s FM Talk 106.5, Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) discussed his recent trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, which he described as “an invasion” that was overwhelming the Border Patrol.
“Just got back in from the border yesterday,” he said. “We went to El Paso, so we were right there on the United States-Mexican boundary. I can tell — you hear from the administration, they’re saying our borders are closed, right? They’re not. We basically have open borders. We have an invasion at our southern border, unlike any that I have seen. The Border Patrol — they’re telling is ever since we repealed the migrant protection protocol, and if we repeal Title 42, they’re not going to be able to handle the influx.”
“Every night, hundreds of single young men are trying to run around the fence, go through the fence, jump the fence, overwhelming our Border Patrol,” Palazzo continued. “Then you have the hundreds, if not thousands, of just unaccompanied minors showing up. And you know we do not send home an unaccompanied minor. They go straight into the CBP program, and then they’re going to be released to either not-for-profits or to a sponsor family somewhere in the United States. ”
The Mississippi Republican lawmaker blamed President Joe Biden and warned the entire country could be facing the same problems as the states along the border have faced for decades.
“This is all avoidable,” he added. “This is Biden’s border crisis. There is no doubt about it. This administration is enabling. Instead of deterring, we are inviting people to take this hazardous, most dangerous journey from whether it is Honduras or El Salvador or Guatemala — to come all the way up, through Mexico and putting themselves at a high chance of personal injury, costing thousands of dollars to do this. They pay smugglers. No one is coming by themselves. They all have to pay to play this game of illegally getting into the United States. Once they get here, obviously, they just disperse all across our country.”
“So, Texas and Arizona and California — those are no longer just our border states,” Palazzo added. “There are so many people coming in. We’re all going to be a border state — Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, all the way to Maine. Well, Maine is a border state — Maryland, Rhode Island. We’re all going to be border states if we don’t get a handle on this very soon.”
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