Last week, I joined Minority Leader Steve Scalise and nine other House colleagues on a visit to Texas to see the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.
This is not the first time I have traveled to our southern border. I traveled to our southern border for the first time in 2018, under the Trump Administration, and later that year, I also visited the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in Virginia with my fellow Energy and Commerce colleagues to learn more about how migrant children and families were being treated.
What we saw down there this time was nothing like my first trip in 2018. There is absolutely no comparison. What we saw last week was tragic, shocking, and directly resulted from the immigration policies of the Biden Administration.
The surge of migrants at the border is unprecedented. In March, more than 172,000 migrants were apprehended at the border – a 71% increase from a year ago. The problem is only getting worse. Customs and Border Patrol expect the number of encounters to climb to more than 200,000 in April.
Despite the best efforts of law enforcement and CBP, we simply do not have the capacity to handle all of the people flooding our southern border. While in Donna, Texas, I saw firsthand how that facility where unaccompanied minors are living is packed and above capacity.
I saw holding “pods” that are only designed to hold 33 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) with 452 little kids in them. The week before, one pod had over 600 little girls in it.
As of March 25 of this year, the CBP had 5,500 UAC’s in their custody. While they are only supposed to have the children for 72 hours, one small girl has been there for 28 days. This is not the fault of the CBP, who are doing the best they can to process these children in the most humane way possible. They are simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of children that are coming.
As a parent, you can’t imagine your own children in this situation.
It’s an unmitigated humanitarian nightmare. Its cause can be directly tied to President Biden and the policies he’s put in place.
In 2019, during a Presidential debate when he was asked what his message would be to those seeking asylum, Biden said “You should come.” Since taking office, he stopped construction of the wall on the southern border on his very first day and paused all deportations.
He also altered the Migrant Protection Protocols which meant that the United States was on the hook for housing migrants who claimed asylum at the border. Keep in mind, three out of every four asylum claims last year were denied. American taxpayers are paying to house migrants despite the fact that most of them will lose their asylum case and be returned home.
While President Biden painted his words and actions as compassionate, the results have been anything but. We’ve seen facilities with families and children crammed into small spaces. In addition, coyotes and traffickers are using the situation to their advantage to exploit Central American families and children. Migrant families often face sexual assault, rape, theft, and extortion on the long trips from Central America at the hands of coyotes. The human traffickers are growing rich – making an estimated $411 million in February of this year alone.
Bad actors are convincing these families that Biden has opened the doors to them – often using his own words and actions to convince them. These coyotes take their money and bring them on a dangerous trip through Mexico to the southern U.S. border. Children are often left behind. There have been countless deaths as migrants are made to cross the Rio Grande River or are involved in car accidents in vehicles that have been packed with people. The stories are horrific.
Traffickers are even using social media now to spread the word. Facebook and WhatsApp have been used by coyotes to advertise their services and spread misinformation. DHS officials are blaming the misinformation on social media for contributing to the surge at the border. Last week, I joined with my colleague, Rep. Buddy Carter, in sending a letter to Facebook to ask them what they are doing to prevent this misinformation on their networks. We need to hold Big Tech accountable if they are contributing to this crisis.
The Biden Administration needs to come to terms with reality and reverse their disastrous policies before it’s too late. That starts with securing the border and using all the tools available to do that – including barriers. It also means a streamlined asylum process that requires asylum seekers to go to Ports of Entry. They need to be processed quickly so those that don’t qualify can be returned to their home country expeditiously.
Most importantly, the United States needs to send a clear message to Central American families that they need to follow the lawful path to come to the United States, not the unlawful one. That means President Biden needs to speak clearly and forcefully that illegal immigrants that cross the border will not be allowed to stay.
My final question is very simple. Where is President Biden? Where is Vice President Harris? Why won’t they come to the border? They need to see the consequences of their policies with their own eyes.
Congressman Bob Latta (R-OH5) has represented Northwest and West Central Ohio in the United States House of Representatives since 2007. Congressman Latta is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is the Republican Leader of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Latta is also a member of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce, which he chaired last Congress. Along with his committee positions, Congressman Latta is a Deputy Whip and Co-Chairs the Rural Broadband Caucus, the Grid Innovation Caucus, the French Caucus, the Congressional Propane Caucus, and more.
