Lawmakers discuss effectiveness of Border War in tackling immigration crisis.
House Republicans led a hearing to discuss the effect of President Joe Biden’s changes to border barrier policies and their impact on illegal immigration going forward.
Republican lawmakers pointed to the sharp increase in illegal immigration detentions and “gotaways” that have flooded the border since the barrier project was halted by Mr. Biden.
The joint subcommittee hearing by the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, led by Chairman Clay Higgins (R-La.), and the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability, led by Chairman Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), featured expert testimony from witnesses from current and former government officials, a representative from the Army Corps of Engineers, and several non-government figures whose lives have been impacted by the border crisis.
“Illegal border crossings have decreased by up to 87 percent from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2020,” Mr. Higgins said, referencing the former Trump administration’s program to strengthen barriers on the southern border.
“In the two and a half years since President Biden was inaugurated, there have been more than 5 million illegal border crossings and over one and a half million gotaways … If this trend continues, the Biden administration is expected to reach nearly two and a half million alien encounters at the southern border by the end of September of this year alone.
Mr. Higgins also asserted that a barrier system at the border allows Customs and Border Protection agents to respond and to detect threats or breaches using surveillance technology in place along the barrier instead of relying on man patrol and other limited surveillance efforts.
Democrat Response
Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Ranking Member Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) weighed in on the issue, saying that a border wall solution to illegal immigration was a “[President] Bill Clinton era project from 30 years ago.”
Mr. Correa went on to say that “the challenges today look very different than they did 30 years ago,” and that the question before the committees was, “Does a border wall fit into the challenges that we are seeing today?”
The lawmaker discussed changes that have taken place at the border throughout the Trump and Biden administrations, referencing the COVID-19 restrictions that came with Title 42, and the repeal of that measure and enactment of Title 8, which Mr. Correa asserted has worked well since it was reenacted.
According to the California lawmaker, a border wall is causing more problems than it is remedying: “The wall is not preventing migrants from coming to the United States, but rather the wall is directing migrants to cross in more remote and dangerous areas of the border.”
“We’ve also seen more injuries, traumatizing families and costing our hospitals millions of dollars.”
Mr. Correa cited data indicating that a large portion of drugs coming from Mexico and China are now coming through alternative routes, bypassing the border wall.
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