Washington, D.C. – Earlier this week, I led an all-female delegation to the Del Rio Sector of the United States-Mexico border with Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and Alabama Senator Katie Britt.
We met with Border Patrol agents, the Texas National Guard, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. We heard firsthand from these brave law enforcement officers about the damage done by the Joe Biden administration’s failure to enforce the law. President Joe Biden’s policies encourage illegal immigration, put every American’s life at risk, and undermine our national security.
Weekly Rundown
There have been more than 4.3 million illegal border crossings, and more than 1 million “gotaways” have disappeared into the country, since President Joe Biden took office. During my visit to the Del Rio Sector, more than 1,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in one night alone. Putting that number into perspective, there were 2,348 migrant encounters in total in January 2020. These staggering numbers don’t begin to cover the amounts of illicit drugs, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine, that are being smuggled into the United States and destroying families.
The Mexican cartels have seen their human smuggling operations grow into a $13 billion industry since President Joe Biden took office. In addition to moving drugs and people across the border, these cartels also exploit migrants—especially women and children—through labor and sex trafficking schemes. Migrants are brought across our border under life-threatening conditions with the promise that they will gain a better life in the U.S.—only to become indebted to the cartels. As long as our southern border is open, women and children will suffer.
In Eagle Pass, Texas, we held a roundtable discussion with former Mexican Congresswoman Rosa María de la Garza, Fox News Contributor Sara Carter, and Karla Jacinto Romero, a survivor of human trafficking, to learn about cartel activity in Mexico and the work being done to rescue victims of human trafficking. One of the most heartbreaking stories we heard was how Karla was raped more than 40,000 times. President Joe Biden’s border policies are far from compassionate.
During our visit to Harris Ranch, we heard from ranchers terrorized by smuggling occurring in their own backyards. In addition to dealing with illegal trespassers, ranchers constantly wake up to find migrants having emergencies on their property, and regularly discover dead migrants who were abandoned by cartel smugglers. These are the real-life impacts of President Joe Biden’s negligence.
The border crisis gets worse every day. Ignoring this humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis will not make it go away. It’s past time for the Biden administration to enforce the immigration laws our nation already has in place.
Marsha’s Roundup
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