Border Emergency and Humanitarian Crisis Are Direct Results of Democrats’ Failed Policies

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the ongoing crisis at the border:

“The American people are watching a terrible sight unfold on our southern border.

“Many thousands of people, largely from Haiti, are literally huddling together underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, just across the Rio Grande.

“Temperatures have been in the triple digits. The conditions are unsanitary and inhumane.

“This nightmare is the direct result of the left-wing policies and left-wing messages pushed by the Biden Administration. They say their approach to immigration is the compassionate path; the one that reflects the soul of America. They are wrong.

“In no way does it honor America’s soul or uphold American values to tolerate a major border security crisis and unending humanitarian disaster that appear to be permanent features of life under the Biden Administration.

“This false choice is the constant refrain from the left. Either we adopt Democrat policies that lure people into literal squalor and effectively open our borders in the middle of a pandemic… or else we are somehow betraying the spirit of the Statue of Liberty.

“This is simply nonsense.

“Legal, orderly immigration has been a proud strength of our country and a core pillar of the American way of life for generations.

“That is completely different than Washington Democrats sabotaging our border while publicly advertising a catalog of socialist benefits they say they’ll provide for illegal immigrants who make it in.

“When President Biden was sworn in, thousands and thousands of people took his far-left campaign rhetoric seriously and began streaming toward our borders.

“One person at the border directly told the Washington Post they came because they heard that, ‘President Biden was letting people in.’

“First, in the springtime, his administration called this a seasonal surge. So much for that — we’ve had more than 150,000 border apprehensions every month for the past six. Encounters usually fall off during the hot summer months; but on this President’s watch, the opposite has happened.

“Listen to just one recent example of the chaos.

“A few days ago, the Biden Administration filled a big bus with illegal immigrants from this encampment. The bus set out for somewhere else in Texas.

“But according to news reporting, partway through the journey, the illegal immigrants on board revolted, took control of the bus, and broke out.

“But more broadly, it sounds like catch-and-release may be the de facto Biden policy.

“Just this morning, the Associated Press reports that according to government officials, ‘Haitian migrants camped in a Texas border town are being released in the United States on a ‘very, very large scale,’ undercutting the Biden administration's public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion.’

“Nobody believes Democrats that this lawlessness, chaos, and human suffering is the fair and compassionate way to govern our country.

“Nobody buys it. An average of recent surveys shows that only 36% of the country approves of President Biden’s handling of immigration while 56% disapprove.

“Americans know a train wreck when we see one. Our citizens deserve better than this failure of leadership. And so do the people Democrats are luring here with a mirage.”