Illegal Crossings Skyrocket At Southern Border As GOP Ponders Using Its Purse Power To Demand Security
Certain areas of the U.S. Southern border reached a new level of crisis this week when thousands of illegal border crossers flooded into the U.S. daily, overwhelming border patrol.
The sudden daily influx stunned underequipped regions like Eagle Pass, TX, Tuscon, AZ, and Cochise County, AZ, which are experiencing some of the highest numbers of illegal border crossings in their history.
Republicans have a chance to address the deadliest border crisis in the world by demanding border security as a prerequisite for their votes on spending bills. Yet, some GOP members of Congress are still toying with simply giving into the Biden administration’s spending desires without addressing the nation’s border problems.
A chorus of Biden officials and corporate media mouthpieces insist that the border is secure and not open to millions of migrants forcing their way into the U.S. As a result, the White House would prefer to send security support and funds to Ukraine instead of funneling some of next year’s spending to the southern border and agencies attempting to protect it.
Boots on the ground at popular crossing points and overcrowded migrant holding facilities, however, tell a different story.
Fox News’s Bill Melugin reported that, in Eagle Pass on Monday morning, more than 2,200 people circumvented the legal port of entry to sneak into the Lone Star State.
Tuscon, Melugin and Fox News also reported, “saw a staggering 13,000 illegal crossings this week alone.”
“And it is just one of nine sectors at the southern border,” Melugin noted.
Overall, this weekend yielded more than 20,000 illegal border crosser arrests. Many who were caught will quickly be released into the U.S. Because of the backlog in our immigration courts. Some of these migrants will wait years for a court date. There is very little that can be done if an illegal border crosser chooses to ignore his audience with a judge.
This weekend’s shocking influx doesn’t include the trainfuls of migrants eagerly making their way to the southern border.
Nor does it account for the estimated tens of thousands of “gotaways” who evade arrest each month thanks to explicit instructions from the Biden White House that law enforcement should avoid apprehending most illegal border crossers.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has yet to release its southwest border apprehension data for August, but informal tallies from agents and reporters on the ground suggest well over 200,000 people illegally attempted to cross the U.S. southern border last month.
The rise in record-breaking border crossings paired with September’s alarming numbers means well over 2 million illegal border crossers will have been arrested and likely released by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus warned in August they wouldn’t support a GOP-led continuing resolution unless both the House and Senate curb the raging border crisis, among other hot-button issues.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy recognizes the threat border problems pose to the security of the nation yet has shown hesitancy at his colleagues’ attempt to use “the power of the purse” to demand change.
Since the spending squabble began, McCarthy’s priority was preventing a government shutdown. He doubled down on that commitment shortly before proposing a stopgap bill that would keep the government funded through October 31.
“I want to make sure we don’t shut down,” McCarthy said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “I don’t think that is a win for the American public and I definitely believe it’ll make our hand weaker if we shut down.”
The House Freedom Caucus is expected to support the continuing resolution because it contains border provisions, including immediately resuming border wall construction, boosting funds for Border Patrol, beefing up security technology, and narrowing asylum policy.
Senate Republicans, who repeatedly side with Democrats on passing President Joe Biden’s spending wish list, however, are unlikely to sign off on a plan that contains none of the “emergency funding” the regime requested for Ukraine and other causes even if it forces a Democrat reconciliation on the border crisis created by their president and his administration.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
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