Democrats to Skip Another Border Hearing, Claim GOP Going to Texas ‘to Attack’ Biden

Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee are skipping a hearing in Texas on Wednesday, marking the second instance this year of a group of congressional Democrats refusing to attend an official field hearing at the border with Republicans.

Committee ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said Democrats made the decision “after careful consideration” and accused Republicans of “traveling to the border to attack the Administration” instead of going on a “fact-finding mission.”

“Unfortunately, it has become clear that Republicans planned to politicize this event from the start, breaking with the Committee’s proud history of bipartisanship,” Thompson said in a statement shared by Fox News.

He added that Republicans were trying “to score political points with their extreme rhetoric – despite having voted against the resources border personnel need.”

Democrats’ refusal to attend this particular hearing, which is set to take place in the busy Rio Grande Valley Border Sector, means they will miss the opportunity to question a key federal witness of the ongoing migration crisis, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz.

Committee chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) called their decision “deeply disappointing” in a statement provided to Breitbart News, noting Democrats had also invited and confirmed their own witness, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Steven Cagan, for one of the hearing’s panels before announcing they would not be present for the event.

“The only message their absence sends is that they are uninterested in coming to the table to have a conversation about the devastation that this border crisis is having on Americans and their communities across the country,” Green said. “We will continue to encourage our Democrat colleagues to get out of the DC echo chamber and meet Americans where they are to discuss the biggest issues facing them.”

Thompson’s announcement about the hearing comes after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee declined to attend a border hearing in February, falsely claiming they were not properly consulted about it.

Judiciary Democrats predicted the hearing, which took place in Yuma, Arizona, would be a “brazen act of political grandstanding.”

The hearing featured a Yuma hospital CEO, a local sheriff, and a county supervisor testifying to Congress about the direct impacts of the flood of migrants crossing the border illegally into the U.S.

Homeland Security Committee member Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), who represents a portion of central Texas, also called his Democrat colleagues’ decision to pass on the hearing “disappointing.”

“Americans deserve solutions but they won’t even come to the table,” he said.