Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have issued a scathing report detailing how President Joe Biden’s policies have driven illegal immigration to the United States to “monumental levels” not seen in decades.
The report blames Biden’s policies for the more than 2.6 million border crossers and illegal aliens that have been encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border since January 2021.
Sens. James Risch (R-ID), John Barrasso (R-WY), Rob Portman (R-OH), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Todd Young (R-IN), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) authored the report, writing:
The illegal migration crisis at the U.S. southern border presents a national security threat and a humanitarian catastrophe for the vulnerable people involved. Illegal migration to the United States has reached monumental levels since the Biden administration entered office. Since January 2021, U.S. law enforcement has encountered over 2.6 million migrants trying to enter the United States illegally from Mexico, northern Central America, and countries beyond. On average, over 171,840 migrants have sought to enter the United States illegally per month during this period, with the highest monthly total reaching 234,088 in April 2022. [Emphasis added]
Specifically, the Senators write that while former President Trump’s border controls — such as the Remain in Mexico program and safe third country agreements — had proven to drastically cut illegal immigration, Biden ended the policies, spurring waves of illegal immigration not seen since former President Bill Clinton’s administration.
The Senators write:
In 2014, President Barack Obama took a series of executive actions which ultimately incentivized illegal migration. These initiatives included expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program; creating a Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program; and expanding use of provisional waivers for unlawful presence. In effect, these policies incentivized waves of illegal migration to the United States. In the years that followed, President Obama presided over a calamitous illegal migration crisis involving thousands of unaccompanied children. The Obama administration ignored years of warnings and mounting evidence about the impending crisis, and then ineffectively responded as it rushed to minimize the political cost of the tragic situation. [Emphasis added]
In the wake of this bad policy, the Trump administration took a series of actions to effectively stem the flow of illegal migration and build political will in neighboring countries to improve their law enforcement and asylum processing capacity. Unfortunately, the Biden administration prematurely dismantled these measures, failed to put in place workable alternatives, and doubled down on the reckless policies of the Obama administration responsible for earlier surges in illegal migration. These policies send a potent signal of lawlessness at the southern border of the United States. Such dangerous signals overwhelm already weak border security and migration management capabilities in Mexico and northern Central America and discourage our neighbors from taking action to improve these critical functions across their own national territories. [Emphasis added]
As policy prescriptions, the Senators write that Biden ought to continue extending the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Title 42 authority that allows Border Patrol agents to quickly return illegal aliens to Mexico, reinstate the Remain in Mexico program, and reimpose all safe third country agreements that Trump had previously negotiated with Central America.
Those agreements ensure that border crossers passing through Mexico to claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border must first seek asylum in Mexico, a nation with a robust asylum process. The agreements, as intended, are meant to end asylum shopping. The U.S. has a similar agreement with Canada.
“Failure to make meaningful progress in these areas will severely undermine the capacity of U.S. law enforcement to protect our nation’s borders and the safety of communities,” the Senators write.
As Breitbart News chronicles, a caravan of more than 7,100 border crossers and illegal aliens is reaching the U.S.-Mexico border every day at current rates. In May, alone, that more than 222,000 border crossers and illegal aliens were encountered at the border.
Meanwhile, from February 2021 to May 2022, the Biden administration has released more than 1.05 million border crossers and illegal aliens into the U.S. interior — twice the population of Wyoming, larger than the population of Austin, Texas, and twice the population of Atlanta, Georgia.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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