GOP Rep. Guest: We Passed an Increase in Border Agents and Detention Beds that Schumer Still Won’t Move

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Bottom Line,” Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS) responded to arguments from Democrats that the failure of the Senate bill will force budget shortfalls on DHS by pointing out that the House appropriations bill increased the number of Border Patrol agents and the number of detention beds, while prior budget requests from the Biden administration have requested cuts to detention beds.

Guest said, [relevant remarks begin around 2:05] “The crisis on the southern border was created by the fact that Secretary Mayorkas refuses to enforce the law. He refuses to detain inmates. And it is so ironic now that they are — being the Democrats — are saying, because the bill in the Senate did not pass, they’re going to have to close detention beds. If they’re worried about funding detention beds, take up the appropriations bill that we passed out of the House that funds DHS. We funded 41,500 detention beds. Secretary Mayorkas only asked for 25,000. We funded a record number of Custom[s] and Border Patrol agents. And so, it is so ironic for the Democrats to want to bring Republicans and [say] we are responsible for the lack of funding, when they’ve had a bill in the senate for months now, that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has refused to bring up, and they are going to exacerbate the crisis that they created.”

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