Legal migrants are being “pushed aside” by the swell of illegal migrants being released into the country, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) warned Monday.
Issa’s comment came in response to a question from Breitbart News about the impacts of surging illegal migration at the southern border during a briefing in GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) office Monday evening.
“We have about 1.2 million people who are legally made permanent residents here per year,” Issa said. “You just heard that approximately twice that many, 2.4 million, will be admitted here under various release programs.”
Issa made his remarks just after he and several of his Republican colleagues received a briefing from U.S. Border Patrol union representatives about the anticipated repercussions of the Biden administration terminating a public health order called Title 42.
The order permits border officials to quickly expel illegal migrants to the last country they were in before crossing into the U.S., in order to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.
A group of individuals are returned to Mexico after being encountered by U.S. Border Patrol agents near Sasabe, Arizona, on March 22, 2020. (CBP Photo by Jerry Glaser)
The Trump administration revived the order in March 2020 as a response to coronavirus. The Biden administration however, as a result of pressure from open-borders advocates, has scaled back its implementation and plans to fully end it in May, a move Border Patrol union President Brandon Judd said during the briefing will cause “the floodgates to completely burst open.”
Ending the Title 42 protection aligns with President Joe Biden’s open-borders posture, which has resulted in unprecedented illegal migration at the southern border. Border Patrol encounter numbers have, for instance, eclipsed those seen during former President Donald Trump’s tenure, according to federal data.
Issa, a senior member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees, contended that, as a result of the southern border crisis, “the whole system of legal immigration is being turned upside down.”
“I think you have to look at the bigger question, which is, what about the entire world filled with people who aspire to become part of the American dream? What about families and extended families of American citizens who are asking for and trying to get here legally?” Issa asked. “They are being pushed aside, inevitably, by this large influx, which ultimately does push aside the amount of legal immigrants that can be accepted into this country.”
Issa added, “I think that’s a tragedy that is in the making. But ten years from now, people are going to look back and say we’ve got to shut down legal and illegal immigration. Right now, we’re only talking about stopping illegal immigration so we can maintain a very generous, the most generous, legal immigration in the world.”
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.