McCarthy defends new GOP majority’s pace on ending border crisis
Anna Giaritelli
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) defended the Republicans’ progress on keeping a midterm election campaign promise to make the border crisis their top priority come January.
“The Republicans have been in office for 40 days. The committees have just now been constituted. Not all of them have even been constituted yet. So I don’t think it’s a really — an opportunity to say, ‘You haven’t acted yet.’ No, we’re here at the border. It didn’t take us 40 years to come here. Less than 40 days,” said McCarthy during a press conference near the Arizona border Thursday afternoon, referencing President Joe Biden‘s first known trip as a politician to the southern border last month.
McCarthy pushed back against reporters who questioned the Biden administration’s role in the border crisis and the lack of legislative action that the House had yet to take on various border-related issues, including illegal immigration and the fentanyl epidemic.
“What has changed from President Trump to President Biden? There has been no legislation change, but why has the border — why has this region gone from 66,000 people coming across to 250,000? Why is everybody who comes across here wear a camouflage outfit and rugs on their feet? Why are we catching so much fentanyl? The only thing that changed was the administration and the administration policies,” said McCarthy.
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McCarthy’s visit is his first since being reelected House speaker in a contentious series of votes last month. The trip to Arizona was meant to be an educational visit for four first-term members: Reps. Juan Ciscomani (AZ), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR), Jen Kiggans (VA), and Derrick Van Orden (WI). Ciscomani delivered the Republican Party’s Spanish-language response to Biden’s State of the Union address earlier this month.
The lawmakers met with homeland security, customs,, and border officials in the Tucson, AZ, region and got an aerial view of the border from the sky.
“As a mom of four, as a Navy veteran, my country’s important, our security’s important, and our families are so important,” said Kiggans. “We’ve got to start supporting our Border Patrol agents. This group of freshmen that’s here is so focused on finding solutions. That’s why we’re here today because we actually want to get things done in Congress.”
Prior to the November election last year, McCarthy had said ending the immigration crisis would be the first issue of business if the party won back the House.
“The first thing you’ll see is a bill to control the border first,” McCarthy told CNN in an interview. “You’ve got to get control over the border. You’ve had almost 2 million people just this year alone coming across.”
McCarthy has visited the border on numerous occasions and brought four first-term House Republicans to Arizona this week to learn about the issue.
One of McCarthy’s top concerns within the border crisis was the flood of fentanyl coming over the southern border. Nearly all seizures of fentanyl have taken place at the ports of entry. not by way of illegal immigrants. Fentanyl seizures at the border have gone from two pounds in 2013 to 14,700 pounds in fiscal 2022 , which ended in September.
Last July, House Republicans debuted a comprehensive plan to regain control of the southern border. The Republican plan largely pulled from previous initiatives used by the Trump administration, including the need for a physical barrier, infrastructure, and technology on the 2,000-mile southern border.
It also called for asylum-seekers to be sent back to Mexico for the duration of their court proceedings and all other illegal immigrants be expelled from the United States on the basis that the country is in a public health crisis.
Republicans also planned to bolster staffing levels at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the 60,000-person federal agency tasked with inspecting vehicles and apprehending people attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.
Under Republicans’ strategy, immigrant families would not be released into the U.S. after being apprehended, but detained together in custody. Unaccompanied migrant children from countries other than Mexico and Canada would no longer be admitted into the country as suspected victims of human trafficking.
However, McCarthy added at the time that the legislation would be more about drawing a line in the sand than changing the law because of Biden’s veto power and the 60-vote threshold to break a Senate filibuster.
During a separate visit to the border two weeks after the November 2022 election, McCarthy reiterated that ending the border crisis would be the House’s top priority come January and called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign.
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This year, two House Republicans, Rep. Pat Fallon (TX) and Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ) — have introduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.
Fallon’s push to force the party to deal with Mayorkas rubs up against McCarthy’s strategy to investigate before going down the political path of impeachment that seems doomed to fail in the Senate. Critics like Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said the GOP shouldn’t rush to impeach but develop a methodical case first.
House committees have begun holding hearings in Washington and at the southern border over the Biden administration’s handling of border security and immigration matters over the past two years. Since January 2021, a record-high 5 million noncitizens have been encountered attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.