Notes

Republicans invite reporters on immediate trip to border to counter alleged Biden "media blackout"
Jonathan thanks dude yeah, i'm looking forward to uh joining ted and john cornyn and 18 of my colleagues going to border, and i hope that president biden will come to the border too. As ted pointed out, part of the biden border crisis consists of a media blackout, which doesn't make a lot of sense, considering that it has become a major crisis for the country, so much so that they sent the federal emergency management agency down to the border. This is a crisis of their own making, as senator cruz pointed out. If you look at the biden policies, they have completely halted construction of the border wall. They have frozen deportations, they have done away with rolled back the remain in mexico policy. All policies, the previous previous administration that were working and had been effective and, as a consequence now, cbp customs and border protection and hhs facilities are overcrowded and overrun. Personnel has spread way too thin and there are lots of migrant families and unaccompanied children who are stranded at the border in overcrowded facilities. It is an emergency, it is a crisis, it is one of their own making and um. check my source believe, and i think that most of my colleagues believe that we have to have a policy that allows for border security. I offered an amendment of the 2013 bill that would have required the building of hundreds of miles of border fence before other elements of the immigration policy could be put into place. But i think strong borders is something the american people support having a policy that includes border security company by asylum reform is, is a plan and a strategy that perhaps could work, but i can tell you right now what they're doing isn't working and the evidence is There i only wish all of you would have a chance to see it when we go look at it later this week, thanks well, 18 of us will be heading to the border tomorrow. We'Re going to thank the border patrol agents for what they're doing on a daily basis and to hear from them what they're up against in their fight we're going to then spread out and do a midnight patrol with border agents. Tomorrow, night, along the border between mexico and texas, we're going to examine the areas where the wall construction has stopped. We'Re going to go to a processing facility and other locations around to see exactly what is happening. And we invited the press to join us because we think it's important for you to be able to film and observe and report to america what is happening there as a result of the crisis, the biden administration says: no, no, the press can't attend and know the American people cannot see for themselves the crisis that the biden policies have created. This is a crisis. It is part of an agenda and amnesty agenda that started the day that president biden took office. He turned on the green light and said: come to america, he stopped construction of the wall. He stopped deportations. He stopped the very successful remain in mexico program that worked so well, and that is why we are right now on the track to have two million illegal immigrants come to this country this year, steve james from montana, you're, probably asking what's a northern border state guy Doing on a southern border trip, you realize that it is more difficult at this moment for a u.s citizen to re-enter the united states, because it requires a passport and a coba test than it is for an illegal immigrant across our southern border. Remember the northern border is shut down at the moment. We want to see the northern border opened up, so canadians come back into montana and spend their tourism dollars, but we are a northern border state at the moment with a southern border crisis. What i mean by that is, i just got off the phone last night with a couple of our county sheriffs. They talk about the flood of mexican cartel meth heroin and fentanyl. It'S not only coming across a southern border in a place like texas, but moving all the way up to montana within days. In fact, one of my county sheriffs was holding seven mexican cartel members in one of their jails most recently, so this directly affects a northern state like montana, the meth that used to be homemade in places like montana had purity levels less than 30 percent. The mexican cartel meth his period levels north of 90. It'S far more dangerous, far more addictive. It'S cheaper because they're making so much of it and flooding across that southern border, because every minute that border patrol is using to stop an illegal coming across the coming across that border. It gives the opportunity these cartels to move more drugs that come right up to montana, so i'll be joining the delegation tomorrow to the southern border. I'M grateful for senator cruz's leadership on this visit and maybe with 18 u.s senators there on the border, maybe we'll be able to get the bite administration say we ought to have the media there as well is someone who has spent two years living along the u.s Mexico border - i i can tell you that there's no group of people more directly affected by uncontrolled waves of illegal immigration than those people who live on or near the border. Those people who see first and perhaps feel most acutely the ramifications that these uncontrolled waves of illegal immigration will have on their schools on the security of their neighborhoods on their own jobs, is not a cost free proposition for them. Nor is it a cost free proposition for the poor men, women and children who are trafficked by these drug cartels, who are bringing them up who, by the way, are earning significant profit. According to one recent estimate over the last month, or so these smugglers are bringing in an estimated 14 million dollars a week every single week that it continues on this pace. It'S not cost-free for the people being smuggled, it's not cost-free for these communities who are affected by it. Uh these are are real uh, uh, breathing feeling human beings who, by the way, disproportionately suffer acts of physical violence and sexual abuse among those who are being trafficked. According to one estimate, 30 percent of the girls and women brought through these cartels are subject to sexual assault as they go along with it. This isn't right. We'Ve got to make sure that our own laws are being applied. So, look if they're not going to allow the press into these facilities. That really is unfortunate, we'll do what we can to be your eyes and ears and communicate the information we're able to acquire while we're there well. First of all, i want to thank ted for organizing this treatment trip in this press conference as well. What is so sad about the crisis the disaster is is on the border, it is a crisis, it is a disaster, but we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Is that not only was this predictable, it was predicted. I know the bite administration is saying. They'Re doing this because they want to be more humane, they are guaranteeing inhumanity all the problems that have been described here so far: the drug trafficking, the human trafficking, the sex trafficking. This was all revealed to us over the last few years. As chairman of homeland security. I i held close to three dozen hearings on this made multiple trips to the border. It'S going to be sad, going down to the border again, and this is just deja vu, we'll see different people but suffering under the same circumstances, the same in humanity because of president biden's policies. Now one of the things i've done over the last six years. As chairman homeland security is developed, the data i asked dh secretary marcus during his confirmation hearing two things guarantee two things. First of all that you will enforce the law, i think it's open to debate whether he's truly doing that and secondly, to continue to provide me data. So i can keep this chart up to date and we we've got to copy this for everybody. But what this chart shows is in gold. Our single adults blew our family units and rather unaccompanied children. This dates back to 2012, when daca deferred action, childhood rivals sparked all of these crises. Remember 2014. President obama declared that a humanitarian crisis when we were getting a thousand people a day and jay johnson was saying that was a really bad day. Now we're getting over 4 000 people per day and we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg. So i encourage all of you to take a look at this chart. It'S got cause and effect. It explains this. You may not be able to get to the border, because the byte administration is preventing you from seeing this, but you can see the cause and effect the numbers that are behind what is a humanitarian crisis today, four or five times worse than what president obama declared Back in 2014, oh by the way one of the facilities we're going to be visiting would be the mcallen texas facility back in 2014, when i went down there codell with other democrat colleagues, everybody was hailing the innovation and the all the work that cbp had done To try and handle the thousand people a day this the same facility that under president trump democrats, said we're putting children in cages. Well, it's even worse today, under the biden administration, but again thank you ted for arranging this. So i'm going down to the texas border to take a look, because i can't look on any media and be able to tell what's going on because not a single member of the media is allowed to be able to go to take a look at this facility. That'S not true of any of the four previous administrations anytime media want to be able to visit any of these facilities. They were allowed to go this administration in the last 24 hours said. We'Ll show you what's going on, so they sent a government camera reporter to take government photos and send it out to the media and say here's your video that you can run with it. I would hope that the media doesn't just say: okay now we know. What'S going on because someone in the biden team took pictures and sent it to us that you would actually anticipate having the ability to be able to go cover the story yourself, so we're going to be able to see it. The odd thing was the very first day of the biden presidency. He declared the emergency was over on the border. That was the stoppage of the construction on the border wall. In that order he said there is no more emergency on the border in that declaration. He also started the process of announcing a large-scale amnesty bill across the united states for individuals that are also here already and then announced individuals 17 years old and younger would not be stopped at the border as they were in the past. The combination of those three things sparked what we have now. How do i know that go back to february of last year before covid, we had less than 40 000 people apprehended at the border that month february of this year, with nothing changing between the two february of this year over a hundred thousand people apprehended. At that same border, ten days ago, i was in arizona to be able to see the stoppage of the wall at that spot to be able to know for that particular area when they stopped construction on january the 20th. What does it look like? Here'S? What happened on january, the 20th? They turned off all the technology installations that were there. What my democrat colleagues have said, we just need to do technology, not not a wall, not a fence that day on january, the 20th, they were doing preparation to lay down the ground, sensors, install cameras and install lights across the border. All of that stopped on january. The 20th, what is remaining in arizona right now is a fence without gates, literally, the gates were the only thing left to install, so we have miles and miles and miles of fence on our southern border right next to a town of 450 000 people in mexico, With a wall with no gates, there is no reason except one why you would install a wall with open gates and no technology. That is, if you wanted an open border. There'S no other explanation for that. The cartels clearly understand that as well and they're sending people by the thousands to us. This is a humanitarian crisis, an emergency that has been has been created and though the biden team said there is no emergency. Oddly enough, two weeks ago, they sent the federal emergency management agency to go help out, so you can't say: there's no emergency and then send fema down to the border to take care of an emergency two ironies of this overall crisis. One is when you look at the byte administration on international issues. They call for transparency, particularly as it relates to china, the uyghurs, the pandemic, how it started what's going on in hong kong and by the way we support them right. We need them. But when you ask for transparency on what's going on in our own country, not china, which we all want our own country, they're, saying no they're saying no especially to you guys, which should be quite offensive. Second is steve: dayne's mentioned it's not getting a lot of press, we have an open southern border, we have a closed northern border in no state in the country. More than mine, alaska is getting negatively impacted. By that we can't get tourists up. We can't leave. It'S very difficult: the priorities are backwards. We need to close the southern border president biden and open the northern border for americans, like my constituents. So these are the ironies that are impacting this crisis and i'm looking forward to getting down on the border and seeing it firsthand and we hope you can come with us.
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