President Biden used his State of the Union speech to blame Congress for the border crisis. Willfully ignoring the fact that he created the crisis, the President continued to claim that he is powerless to act without congressional action, namely passing the deeply-flawed Senate border bill authored by Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Krysten Sinema (I-Ariz.).
Doubling down in a fiery tone, the President insisted that the Senate border bill – rather than enforcing existing law – is the solution. He claimed that the Senate package “would save lives and bring order to the border. It would also give me and any new president new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming.” Biden then blamed President Trump (“his predecessor”) for convincing Republicans not to support the Senate bill. “I believe that given the opportunity, for a majority in the House and Senate would endorse the bill as well — a majority right now.”
The President also called on Congress to pass a mass amnesty proposal he laid out on his first day in office. That bill, the U.S. Citizenship Act, would provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens, import thousands more foreign workers, and contains no meaningful provisions to secure our borders. Not surprisingly, absent from Biden’s speech was any mention of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which was passed by the House last year.
And, after nearly two weeks of silence, Biden finally acknowledged the murder of University of Augusta student Laken Riley, for which an illegal alien from Venezuela was arrested. Much to the surprise of the attendees, he responded to interjections by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and said her name—but then mispronounced it, saying Lincoln rather than Laken. Then, rather than accept responsibility for how his administration’s open-borders policies contributed to her death, the President deflected blame. Suggesting such tragedies are rare, he asked: “But how many of the thousands of people are being killed by legals?” Notably, these comments on Laken Riley were not in the prepared speech released to the press.
Republicans were swift to push back on the President’s speech. In the Republican response, Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) laid the blame for the crisis squarely at President Biden’s feet: “We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days.” Calling the crisis “a disgrace” and “despicable,” she pointed out that it was entirely preventable. House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) called on Congress to enact H.R. 2, referring to the border crisis as one of leadership and not resources.
As FAIR has detailed, the Senate border package would not solve the border crisis. In fact, it would codify catch-and-release policies that encourage asylum abuse and is packed with giveaways to open-borders advocates. The bill: (1) would create a new asylum system that allows for aliens to be released immediately and granted work permits; (2) contains an expulsion authority that would sunset after three years, is riddled with exceptions, and would allow up to 5,000 illegal aliens to cross every day for a total of more than 1.8 million each year; and, (3), contains a grab bag of giveaways, such as 50,000 more green cards every year for five years and billions in taxpayer funding for NGOs to facilitate illegal immigration.
The simple truth is that President Biden and his now-impeached Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas created the crisis at our borders. Together, at every turn, they have undermined our immigration laws and ushered in an unprecedented flood of illegal immigration. Our borders are out of control because of their disastrous open-borders policies and Americans across the country are paying the price.
To learn more about the top reasons to oppose the Senate border bill, access FAIR’s summary here. To learn more about H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, and how you can get involved, visit FAIR’s activist toolkit here.
