Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is pressing Democrat President Joe Biden to answer for what he calls dangerous immigration policies which are leading to flooding of the nation with “unvaccinated” illegal aliens capable of further spreading the coronavirus within America’s borders.
The letter from Cotton to Biden, signed by several other GOP senators, opens by noting Biden has re-implemented failed immigration policies from former President Barack Obama’s administration before adding that the Biden policies are endangering America’s public health as well as the nation’s public safety and economic well-being. The letter, which Breitbart News obtained exclusively ahead of its public release, is signed by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Joni Ernst (R-IA), James Lankford (R-OK), Marco Rubio (R-FL), John Thune (R-SD), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rick Scott (R-FL), James Inhofe (R-OK), and Thom Tillis (R-NC).
“We write regarding your administration’s efforts to severely weaken border security and immigration controls in the midst of an historic pandemic,” Cotton and the GOP senators wrote to President Biden. “Your re-implementation of the failed Obama-era policy of “catch-and-release,” your planned rescission of international agreements like the Migration Protection Protocols (also known as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program), and your attempts to dismantle immigration enforcement and halt deportations have predictably led to a surge of migration to our southern border. This endangers our economic recovery, weakens public safety, and imperils our nation’s public health.”
Despite Biden opening the country up for illegal alien access through the southern border, he and Democrat governors and local officials nationwide have kept much of the country closed to Americans. What’s more, on Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported the Biden administration was considering domestic travel restrictions, cutting off states like Florida from other states internally in the country. The Republican senators question how Biden could logically defend opening the gates at the border for illegal aliens while continuing crushing restrictions on ordinary Americans, keeping parents out of work and kids out of school. They question Biden on his logic of allowing swaths of “unvetted and likely unvaccinated illegal aliens to enter our nation” while he continues to restrict Americans’ activity in the name of public health.
“As we write this letter, main streets across America are shuttered, millions of parents can’t go to work, and children are kept from school,” the GOP senators wrote. “In a nation where everything seems closed, our border is now open. In violation of the law and common sense, your administration is allowing large numbers of unvetted and likely unvaccinated illegal aliens to enter our nation.”
The letter continues by pointing to public reporting indicating that Biden has decided to allow illegal aliens into the country en masse, issuing policies that direct agencies that would normally enforce the law to instead release the illegal aliens — again, who have likely not been tested for coronavirus infection or vaccinated against the virus — into the nation’s interior.
“Public news reporting indicates that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are being instructed to release illegal aliens they encounter at the border into our nation’s interior. The only consequences that these illegal aliens appear to face is that they are given notices to appear in court—notices that we know from experience they will likely ignore,” Cotton and the GOP senators wrote. “It is no surprise that the news media is already reporting that there is an ‘immigration crisis’ forming as these policies draw more illegal aliens to our borders. We are seeing reports of human smugglers increasing recruitment, and migrant caravans are again rushing toward the United States. The immigration surge caused by your policies has even forced your administration to reopen a child immigration detention facility that Democrats called to close during the previous administration.”
Next, Cotton and the GOP senators zone in on how Biden’s actions on immigration represent a serious public health threat to American citizens and question how implementing restrictions on Americans while allowing likely unvaccinated illegal aliens to stream across the border makes sense.
“The increased arrival of illegal aliens into American communities also poses a health threat to the average citizen,” Cotton and the GOP senators wrote. “To date, Mexico is estimated to have vaccinated less than one percent of its population and Northern Triangle nations have vaccinated virtually none of their citizens. The vast majority of illegal aliens come from these four, mostly-unvaccinated nations. COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] is a highly contagious virus and a small percentage of infected migrants could unintentionally cause widespread harm. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated and illegally-present individuals is an unnecessary danger to our public health. Your administration is enforcing pandemic-related restrictions on air travel into the United States, and is reportedly even considering requiring testing for American citizens before boarding domestic flights. Yet at our southern border you are giving illegal aliens a free pass to enter the United States without testing. There is no legitimate justification for your administration being more restrictive with American citizens traveling within our country than illegal aliens who are rushing across our borders.”
The letter concludes by noting that if Biden does not change course away from his open borders vision that is inconsistent with domestic restrictions on Americans, it could create a “public health and humanitarian disaster.”
“This is the beginning of what could rapidly turn into a public health and humanitarian disaster,” Cotton and the GOP senators wrote. “If illegal immigration continues to surge as a result of your policies, our detention facilities will be overwhelmed and pandemic precautions would be difficult or impossible to maintain. Not only would this greatly endanger the American public, but the migrants themselves would face increased potential for viral spread. You have mentioned many times that this virus, which has already claimed the lives of over 465,000 Americans, will get worse before it gets better. If that is true, we can’t afford for you to create a crisis at the border or cause an increase in COVID-19 cases due to increased illegal immigration. We urge you to quickly reassess and rescind your administration’s reckless immigration actions and focus instead on protecting the American people. Open our economy and our schools, not our border.”
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