WASHINGTON—This afternoon just outside the Capitol, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs and members of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Border Security and Immigration—Lora Ries, Mark Morgan, and Tom Homan—held a press conference blasting the Biden administration’s announced end to Title 42 in May, as well as the open-borders policies that have created the worst border crisis in American history, and the devastating effect this crisis is having on the men and women of the Border Patrol, Americans across this country, and the migrants themselves.
Watch the full briefing: Press Briefing on Title 42, Biden Border Crisis with Rep. Andy Biggs and The Heritage Foundation
HIGHLIGHTS:
Rep. Biggs: “President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have instituted policies that have created this crisis that is unprecedented in American history. And now they want to exacerbate the problem by eliminating Title 42. That’s a reckless decision. A thoughtless decision. But no doubt, and make no mistake, it is a purposeful decision. Ending Title 42 will only fuel the current catastrophe that we have on the border right now. In just one year, we have had more than 2.5 million illegal aliens show up at our southern border. That is unprecedented and now it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”
Ries: “Many politicians have labeled our immigration system as broken over the years. But in fact, the Biden administration is still falsely blaming its historic border crisis on the previous administration. But Americans see and understand that the Biden administration has completely blown open our border. On top of that, this administration entices and encourages all those illegally crossing the southern border to seek asylum to stay here permanently. The left treats our border and immigration as just another system to dismantle and rebuild in their own radical vision, just as they’ve down with the family, education, the criminal justice system, and more.”
Morgan: “But when you open your borders up to one threat, you open your borders up to all the vast, complex threats that we face. When you have 3.5 million migrants illegally breaking into our country, limited Border Patrol resources are pulled off the front lines. They’re pulled off their national security mission. That leaves the border wide open, unmonitored, and un-patrolled. And what happens? The cartels exploit that, and they take advantage of that by design.”
Homan: “ICE has been dismantled. Their policies have been dismantled. And [Secretary Mayorkas] still gets on stage to say we are having a difficult time because the last administration dismantled the immigration system. That’s a lie, a stone-cold lie. The only ones dismantling anything is this administration. Through 70 executive orders, they dismantled everything that we did the last four years to give us the most secure border in my lifetime that saved a lot of lives. Secure borders save lives.”
