House Republican Oversight Chairman James Comer Announces Hearing on ‘Worst Border Crisis in American History’

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced Thursday the committee will hold a hearing on the policies that have “ignited” the Biden border crisis.

Comer said in a written statement:

President Biden’s radical open borders agenda has ignited the worst border crisis in American history. The Biden Administration’s deliberate actions are fueling human smuggling, stimulating drug cartel operations, enabling deadly drugs such as fentanyl to flow into American communities, and encouraging illegal immigrants to flout U.S. immigration laws. Republicans will hold the Biden Administration accountable for this ongoing humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis that has turned every town into a border town. [Emphasis added]

The hearing, which will commence the week of February 6, could include border patrol agents, including:

• Jason Owens, chief border patrol agent, U.S. Border Patrol
• Gregory, chief border patrol agent, U.S. Border Patrol
• Gloria Chavez, chief patrol agent, U.S. Border Patrol
• Patricia McGurk-Daniel, acting chief patrol agent, U.S. Border Patrol

Chairman Comer also requested Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to provide documents, communications, and information about DHS’s role in “undermining efforts to secure the southern border.”

Comer wrote in his letter to Mayorkas:

The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is continuing to investigate the Biden Administration’s creation of and failure to resolve the worst border crisis in American history.1 The United States’ immigration system should be “safe, orderly, and humane.” It is not. The American people deserve answers about the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) role in undermining Customs and Border Protection agents’ efforts to secure the southern border. The Committee requests documents and information to understand DHS’s policies, the costs of the emergency measures needed to respond to the worsening crisis, and the national security risks created by these policies.

President Biden waited until there was a Republican majority in the House of Representatives to finally visit the border. 2 The visit, however, comes long after DHS’s rollback of deterrent-focused policies3 that were working to reduce the number of illegal border crossings. This rollback continues to undermine law enforcement’s ability to work toward operational control over the southern border and cedes power to human smuggling organizations and cartel criminals that have made billions of dollars over the last two years.4 [Emphasis added]

The Kentucky conservative cited that the Biden administration has continued to implement “failed policies,” including the DHS’s expansion of the “unlawful abuse” of the parole process to bring in 30,000 foreign nationals per month.

Comer also accused the Biden administration of moving towards its “ultimate goal” of enacting a “massive amnesty” of illegal aliens.

Breitbart News reported that the U.S. Border Patrol officials estimated 72,000 migrants got away in December without being apprehended after they illegally crossed the border.

Unofficial Border Patrol estimates put at roughly 844,000 the number of migrants who were either apprehended after crossing the border or were “got-aways” during the first quarter of 2023.

This is the latest move by the Oversight Committee to scrutinize the Biden administration.

The committee announced earlier this week that they would hold a hearing to investigate “rampant waste” of taxpayer dollars in the coronavirus relief programs.

The Oversight committee also pressed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for information about the Biden family and their associates’ “suspicious business transactions” flagged by American banks. Comer also asked former Twitter executives to testify during an early February hearing about the suppression of the New York Post‘s reporting about the Hunter Biden laptop, which was exposed by Breitbart News Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris during her time at the Post.