House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and some 60 House Republicans visited the west Texas border town of Eagle Pass, where customs officials recently recorded more than 4,000 contacts with illegal immigrants in a single day.
The visit calls attention to the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, which has allowed more than 6.5 million people to cross the southern border illegally in the past three years.
The influx has overwhelmed the capacity of border towns and the nation’s largest cities alike. And it has become an animating issue for House Republicans, who insist that the Senate enact and President Joe Biden adopt sweeping policy changes that will halt the flow of up to 12,000 people who illegally enter the United States every day.
“We would describe it as both heartbreaking and infuriating,” Mr. Johnson said after touring the border. “Our communities are overrun. We have local resources that are being strapped. We have lethal drugs that are pouring into our country at record levels. And it’s in less than three years that President Biden took office that this has happened, that we have over 7 million illegal encounters at the border.”
Cause of the Crisis
Republicans and Democrats have traded accusations over who’s responsible for the breakdown in border security. Mr. Johnson laid the blame for the breakdown in border security on President Biden.“It was on his very first day in office that President Biden stopped construction of a southern border wall, and he ended the Remain in Mexico policy. It was estimated ... that if the Biden administration would reinstate just the Remain in Mexico policy, it could stem the flow by probably 70 percent or more, but he refuses to do it,” Mr. Johnson said during a Jan. 3 press conference. “And since the time that President Biden took office, the administration has done next to nothing to protect the border.”
Mr. Johnson called on the president to take immediate executive action, including putting an end to the “catch and release” policy and either deporting or detaining those crossing the border illegally, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy instituted during the Trump administration, and resuming construction of the border wall.
Republicans have vowed to secure the border and to hold accountable the administration officials they see as responsible for creating the crisis. Chief among them is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“The greatest domestic threat to national security and the safety of the American people is Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas,” said Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “He, through his policies, has defied and subverted the laws passed by the United States.”
The House voted last fall to return an impeachment resolution for Mr. Mayorkas to the House Homeland Security Committee rather than to impeach him. That committee is now preparing to take up the matter, a spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
“The bipartisan House vote in November to refer articles of impeachment to my committee only served to highlight the importance of our taking up the impeachment process—which is what we will begin doing next Wednesday,” Mr. Green (R-Tenn.) told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
The administration has countered that Republicans have undermined President Biden’s attempts to secure the border.
“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement via email.
Ukraine as Leverage
To spur action on closing the southern border, House Republicans have resorted to using military aid for Ukraine as leverage.“What we saw today only made House Republicans more resolved to stand for sanity and the American people, and we will do it,” Mr. Johnson said. “If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin by defending America’s national security.”
House Republicans have been in negotiations with the Senate over approval of a $106 billion supplemental request from President Biden, which includes $45 billion for Ukraine.
Mr. Johnson informed the Senate in December 2023 that House Republicans wouldn’t approve additional military aid for Ukraine until that chamber approved the provisions of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which the House passed nearly a year ago.
Those provisions include limiting the ability of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to allow immigrants to temporarily enter the United States and changing the process for seeking asylum in the United States and the rules for treating unaccompanied children who cross the border.
The bill would also require the State Department to negotiate with countries in the Western Hemisphere, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, on the handling of claims for asylum by citizens of those countries.
Also, employers would be required to use E-Verify, a web-based system that allows employers to confirm an employee’s eligibility to work in the United States. Those requirements would be phased in over a period of years, based on the size of the employer’s workforce. The bill would also stiffen civil and criminal penalties for hiring people with no legal right to work in the United States.
The bill would require the DHS to resume construction of the border wall, which was suspended by President Biden on Jan. 20, 2021, the day he took office.
Mr. Johnson urged the president to accomplish a number of these objective actions in a Dec. 21, 2023, letter.
Cities, Towns Overwhelmed
Eagle Pass, a city of some 28,000 inhabitants, has become a symbol of the border crisis.“Two weeks ago, there were 12,000 people coming over illegally under that bridge to right down the street,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who represents Eagle Pass, told reporters. “There was [sic] thousands of people in the Firefly facility that we visited earlier today. That has a max capacity of 1,000 people. There were 6,000 people. There were 4,000 people that are getting released. We are at the brink of massive catch and release, and when that happens, our communities get turned upside down.”
Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas signed a blanket charge affidavit allowing the arrests for trespassing on park grounds during a July 2023 surge in illegal border crossings.
Texas authorities have been authorized to arrest illegal immigrants for trespassing on private land since 2021 in what Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott labeled an “arrest and jail” operation. The operation is made possible by landowners who enter agreements with the state to allow the arrests on their properties.
Mr. Salias has praised the operation for bringing needed law enforcement personnel to the city.
“Our force is not big enough to maintain the peace of Eagle Pass if we have 10 to 15,000 people coming through,” he told The Associated Press.
The Texas operation has produced more than 37,000 criminal arrests in the state, according to Ericka Miller, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Public Safety.
“Had we not been there, all of it likely would have crossed into the country unimpeded,” Ms. Miller said in an email. “The state of Texas is working to send a message to those considering crossing into the country illegally to think again.”
Mr. Abbott has drawn criticism for his efforts to deal with the crisis, which includes sending buses and planeloads of illegal immigrants to New York, Chicago, and Denver.
New York Mayor Eric Adams, whose city has received more than 160,000 migrants in less than two years, said 14 busloads arrived in a single day just prior to Christmas.
“We cannot allow buses with people needing our help to arrive without warning at any hour of day and night,” Mr. Adams said during a virtual press conference with other mayors on Dec. 27, 2023. “This not only prevents us from providing assistance in an orderly way, it puts those who have already suffered in so much in danger.”
Cartels Are the Real Problem
Mr. Garcia and other members of Congress said the root of the problem is that criminal cartels in Mexico control the traffic at the border.“With this crisis that Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas have created, nobody wins except the cartels. They decide who gets to cross and who does not. They are the ones trafficking people and drugs,” said Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), an immigrant from Mexico who gained citizenship in 2006.
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) said: “We are not dealing with an immigration problem. We are dealing with a sex trade problem. We are dealing with a cartel issue.”
Negotiations Ongoing
While Republicans toured Eagle Pass, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Senate negotiators were moving closer to a deal that could provide additional arms to Ukraine.“We’re making progress. We’re closer than we have been, but this is a very difficult issue and there’s still different issues to be overcome with,” Mr. Schumer told reporters in Washington on Jan. 3. “Everyone’s going to have to give something to get this done. No one can just get his or her own way.”
Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) returned to Washington on Jan. 2 to continue negotiations, which included Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and White House officials.
The Senate will reconvene on Jan. 8 and the House on Jan. 9.
