Republicans should go on offense on border security

The biggest story out of Washington, DC this week was that "good faith" negotiations on a bipartisan amnesty bill had collapsed. Republicans have Hugh Hewitt, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Speaker Johnson to thank for that collapse. Now that the amnesty deal has collapsed, it's time for Republicans to go on the offensive.

Let's start with a healthy shot of truth. In FY2020, there were 458,000 illegal border crossings The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 each year, which means the next fiscal year starts on Oct. 1 each year. I started with FY2020 because that's the last full year of the Trump administration. The first (partial) year of the Biden administration is FY2021. In FY2021, CBP recorded 1,734,000 illegal border crossings. In FY2022, the first full FY of the Biden administration, CBP recorded 2,370,000 illegal border crossings. Finally, in FY2023, CBP recorded 2,475,000 illegal border crossings.

The point is that the Trump policies of building the wall, remain in Mexico and Catch and Deport were working. The statistics prove that they were working. The statistics also prove that Secretary Mayorkas is lying. You can't have a 2,000,000 illegal immigrant increase over 2 years and still have a secure border. This is Biden's latest attempt to con us:

For everyone who is demanding tougher border control, this is the way to do it.

Here's my full statement on border security negotiations: pic.twitter.com/sm2IXV99Lx

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 27, 2024

Joe Biden isn't interested in shutting down the border. If he was, he would've finished building Trump's wall. Plans that don't include 900+ miles of wall aren't serious border security bills. It's time to ask Biden why he's taken 3 years to enter serious negotiations with Republicans to fix the Biden broke and that Democrats enthusiastically supported.

If the open border is Trump's fault, why hasn't Biden pointed to the legislation that Trump signed that made the problem worse. Biden the biggest things Trump did was reach agreements with Mexico (Remain in Mexico) and the Northern Triangle agreements and building the wall.

Why haven't Democrats supported finishing building the wall? The U.S.-Mexico border is almost 2,000 miles long. Without a wall, Border Patrol has to patrol every inch of that border. The advantage that a wall give BP agents is that BP can create short openings in the wall, then position BP agents near those funnel points. BP agents think of the wall as a "force multiplier" that increases the effectiveness of the agents. Why shouldn't that forever be U.S. policy?

Why did Joe Biden obliterate Trump's border policies? Clearly, they worked. Just 458,000 illegal immigrants entered the U.S. during FY2020. That's an average of 1,250 per day. In FY2021, 1,734,000 illegal immigrants crossed into the U.S. That's an average of 4,750 per day. The fact that the number of people illegally crossing into the U.S. per day quadrupled didn't startle the Biden administration and cause them to change policies says everything. They weren't startled because that's what Democrats wanted.

John Kirby should be asked multiple follow-up questions after pulling this stunt:

First follow-up question: You say that the border patrol needs that wire cut dow to do their job but the Border Patrol chief said that the removal of the wire will "undoubtedly" cause more illegal immigrants to reach the U.5. Why would we want that? Next follow-up question: Adm. Kirby, you say that this new supplemental spending bill includes money for 1,300 new BP agents.

When the Inflation Reduction Act was debated, Republicans offered an amendment to eliminate the 87,000 proposed new IRS agents from the Democrats' bill. First, we don't need 87,000 new IRS agents. Next, there's a crisis at the border. Why shouldn't we address the border crisis first before hiring additional IRS agents to harass taxpayers? The last I heard, there wasn't an out-of-control tax fraud crisis in the U.S.