23 Republicans Move to Censure Biden for ‘Dereliction of Duty’ at Border

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on June 23, 2021. Win McNamee/Getty Images

A group of 23 Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), on Wednesday introduced a resolution to censure President Joe Biden for what they say has been his “dereliction of duty” at the U.S.-Mexico border, and a failure to enforce border security and immigration laws.

“My censure resolution holds President Biden accountable for his actions—or lack thereof—at the border,” Boebert said in a statement. “Biden has refused to enforce the laws securing our border, he has refused to visit our border, his border czar Kamala has refused to visit the border, and his Secretary of Homeland Security is lying to the American people by saying that our border is closed.”

It comes amid a spike in illegal immigration in recent months. Border Patrol apprehended 180,000 illegal aliens in May, the highest total in 21 years. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials say the majority, more than 112,000, were expelled under the Title 42 emergency health provision put in place during the Trump administration. The number of border encounters has been rising steadily since last October but surged in February after Biden took office and reversed or altered a number of key Trump-era policies.

“Not only has Biden done nothing to secure the border, he has actively made it worse by implementing policies that incentivize illegal immigration like amnesty, catch and release, and abolishing the remain in Mexico policy. The result of Biden’s mismanagement is staggering, and the numbers speak for themselves,” Boebert said.

Boebert took aim at Vice President Kamala Harris, who Biden appointed to lead U.S. efforts with Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle countries—Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala—to stop migrants from crossing into the United States.

Harris is yet to visit the southern border, however, she announced Wednesday that she will travel to El Paso, Texas, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday.

Before the vice president announced plans to visit the border this week, a group of more than 50 House GOP lawmakers on June 17 called on Biden to remove Harris from her border assignment, arguing in a letter that she had not yet shown adequate interest in observing this crisis first-hand.

The text of Boebert’s resolution expresses “disapproval of the failure to uphold the constitutional duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ and the usurpation of the legislative authority of Congress by the President of the United States.”

It resolves to censure the president “for his failure to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ as required by the Constitution,” and calls on the president to fire Mayorkas and replace him ”with leadership that will prioritize the security of the United States and faithfully enforce the laws enacted by Congress.”

Biden administration officials have defended the president’s border policies, claiming they’ve made the immigration system “more humane.”

“We have a strategy, we are executing on our strategy, I have confidence in our strategy,” Mayorkas told members of Congress during a recent hearing.

CBP Former Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan in a statement accused the president of presiding over the “greatest abandonment of immigration enforcement and border security this country has ever seen,” adding: “Our border is in a historic crisis, solely due to his actions.”

“Representative Lauren Boebert’s resolution would rightly censure President Biden for ignoring immigration laws and refusing to address the crisis, while also calling for him to terminate an open borders radical who leads the very agency I once served in,” Morgan said. “President Biden can stop the crisis today. It is time for him to put the American people and rule of law first, and restore order at our border.”

The Biden administration didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.