Secure the border

From day one of Joe Biden's presidency, Republicans have fought tooth and nail to advance the policies we need to secure our southern border. Yet at every step of the way, Biden and Washington Democrats have blocked our commonsense efforts to make our border secure again like it was under President Donald Trump. And the consequences of the Left's actions -- or lack thereof -- are absolutely alarming.

Under Biden, there have been OVER 5.8 million illegal crossings of our southern border. To put that into perspective, that's roughly the population of Wisconsin. And in the first 10-months of FY23, 146 people whose names appear on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the southern border -- more than all encounters in FY17, FY18, FY19 and FY20 COMBINED. While the lawlessness on our border is a major humanitarian crisis and threat to our national security, it's big business for Mexican cartels, which are making $13 billion a year by smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S. It's important to point out that the $13 billion doesn't take into account the billions of dollars cartels have made flooding our communities with fentanyl and other deadly illicit drugs.

What's interesting is that even leaders on the Left are sounding the alarm over Biden's handling of the border crisis. New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently said the massive influx of illegal immigrants the city has seen "will destroy New York City." So what's driving liberals to suddenly change their tune? Republican governors of states overwhelmed with illegal immigration decided to bring the crisis right to the doorstep of sanctuary cities, where liberal politicians have enacted laws that protect illegal immigrants from being deported and -- in numerous cases -- being held accountable for committing heinous crimes.

In San Francisco, the city's sanctuary status has protected two illegal immigrants -- one accused of murder and another accused of child rape -- from prosecution. And in a glaring example of the Left's hypocrisy, the very same Los Angeles City Council that passed a law earlier this year to turn "The City of Angels" into a sanctuary city just launched a lawsuit against Texas Governor Greg Abbott's bussing program, which has sent thousands of illegal immigrants from his border state to liberal cities across the nation. Governor Abbott and many Republicans preferred the Trump policies of remaining in Mexico while awaiting a ruling on their immigration status, but border state governors are forced into this terrible situation because of the incompetence of the Biden administration, which allows these individuals to stay in America.

When I led a group of my Republican colleagues on a fact-finding mission to the southern border last year, border patrol officials we met with said that President Trump's remain in Mexico policy was one of the most effective deterrents in curbing the incentives to cross into our nation illegally. During our border visit, I also uncovered that thanks to Biden's decision to cancel construction on Trump's border wall, the hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of steel that was purchased to construct this critical border enforcement tool was rusting away on the ground instead of being used to fill the numerous gaps that allow illegal immigrants and deadly drugs to flow across our border.

As the Left continues to shift blame or turn a blind eye to the crisis they created, House Republicans are fighting back. In May, my House Republican colleagues and I voted to pass the Secure the Border Act of 2023, legislation to force Biden to restart construction of the border wall, increase the number of border patrol agents, end catch and release, and so much more. Unfortunately, the Democrat-controlled Senate is standing in the way of our efforts to get this bill -- the strongest border security legislation in generations -- to the president's desk. But make no mistake, we will continue fighting to defeat the Left's open border agenda. Just like President Trump said, "a nation without borders is not a nation."

Jason Smith (R-MO) represents the eighth congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.