13 House Democrats Break Ranks to Back Resolution Denouncing Biden’s Immigration Polices

Texas National Guard members prevent illegal immigrants from Venezuela from crossing a barbed wire fence to at the El Paso Sector Border after crossing the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on Feb. 29, 2024. Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images

A group of House Democrats helped pass a Republican-led resolution on Wednesday condemning President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, marking the latest instance of dissent within the president’s own party as the November election approaches.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), whose congressional district covers over 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, introduced the resolution. It denounced President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for creating “the worst border security crisis in the Nation’s history” by systematically doing away with “effective border security measures and interior immigration enforcement” inherited from the previous administration.

A total of 13 Democrats joined 210 Republicans to vote in favor of the measure, while 191 Democrats and zero Republicans voted against it. Eight Democrats and seven Republicans did not vote.

The 13 House Democrats who cast the “yes” votes were Reps. Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Yadira Caraveo (D-Colo.), Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Josh Harder (D-Calif.), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), Susie Lee (D-Nev.), Mary Peltola (D-Alaska.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), and Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.).

“The Biden administration’s open-borders policies have incentivized 9,500,000 illegal aliens from all around the world, including criminal aliens and suspected terrorists, to arrive at the southwest border,” the resolution reads.

It went on to list dozens of critiques of the administration’s record, including halting the construction of border barriers and “refusing to detain inadmissible aliens.”

The resolution also invoked the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. During the State of the Union speech, President Biden described Mr. Riley’s alleged killer as “an illegal,” only to apologize two days later for using that word and causing discomfort among progressive activists.

The Biden administration’s border policies “allowed Laken Riley’s illegal alien alleged murderer to enter the United States and ensured he would not be removed until it was too late—if at all,” the resolution declared.

Immigration Is Top Issue for Americans

The issue of border security and immigration, a weak spot for President Biden’s reelection campaign, has emerged as the concern for American voters as migrants continue to overwhelm the southern border in record numbers.

According to a recent Gallup survey, a steady 27 percent of Americans have named immigration as the most important problem the country faces for three consecutive months. In the past 24 years, this is the first time this issue held the monthly survey’s top spot three times in a row.

An earlier poll taken in March by The Associated Press suggested that over two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the Biden administration’s handling of immigration compared to 31 percent who say the president is doing a good job. A slight majority of 56 percent of Democrats approved pf the president’s immigration policies, while just 20 percent of independents and 9 percent of Republicans expressed positive attitudes.

Months ahead of the general election, several of the Democrats who voted for Wednesday’s resolution are considered competitive defenders of their seats in the lower chamber of Congress.

The latest Cook Political Report rates the races involving Mr. Davis, Mr. Golden, and Ms. Perez as toss-ups in favor of Democrats, while Ms. Peltola’s contest receives a “Lean Democrat” rating.

All four Democrats recently joined Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) in calling on President Biden and Congress to take “immediate action” to address security at the southern border after none of the much-anticipated border security measures made it into a $95 billion foreign military aid package.

Specifically, the Democrats asked the president to “immediately reimplement” a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act to return migrants pending their asylum court hearings to Mexico.

They also urged leaders in both chambers to pass legislation “to give Border Patrol back the expulsion authority that expired last year,” referring to what’s known as Title 42, a pandemic-era measure that allowed authorities to expedite the removal of migrants on public health grounds.

“Our national security interests don’t stop at our physical borders. That is why we voted to send more weapons to Ukraine for its fight against Russia,” the Democrats said in an April 24 statement. “The lesson of Pearl Harbor must not be forgotten: appeasement invites aggression against us. As Speaker [Mike] Johnson stated last week, we would rather send ‘bullets than American boys.’”