President Joe Biden recently made his first visit to the southern border since assuming office. U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville has visited the U.S.-Mexico border multiple times since taking office and released a video montage criticizing Biden’s border policies.
“Either he is blind, or he doesn’t know what he is doing,” Tuberville said of the President’s failure to recognize the crisis at the border and the effects that that lawlessness is having on the country as a whole.
Tuberville most recently visited the border in October 2022. During the visit, he met with men and women on the frontlines of the border crisis, including National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd and Del Rio Sector Chief Jason Owens.
“I have spoken directly with the men and women at the border, and it has opened my eyes to what needs to be done to fix this crisis,” Tuberville said. “When the leadership of our own country ignores our own laws, people take advantage. The result is cartels exploiting our laws to smuggle humans, drugs, and other illicit materials across the border.”
On his first day in office, President Biden ended the national emergency on the southern border, halted construction on the border wall, and weakened enforcement of our immigration laws by halting the deportation and detention of those who cross our border. Since then, more than four million illegal immigrants have been apprehended at our southern border — nearly the total population of Alabama residents.
“President Biden made the radical decision to open our borders by undoing many successful policies put in place by the Trump administration that were working, and he changed them,” Tuberville said. “You can draw a straight line from those ill-advised policy decisions to where we are as we speak. When we allow people to continuously break our laws, we should not be surprised when more people join in. We should not be surprised when our laws no longer carry authority in our country.”
In August 2022, President Biden followed through with a campaign promise to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy that mandates those requesting asylum in the United States stay in Mexico while their claims are processed. Recently, a federal judge delayed the repeal of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, finding that the Biden administration failed to include key considerations in the memo rescinding the policy.
Biden has also attempted to end Title 42, which allows the immediate expulsion of illegal immigrants during a national health emergency and was enacted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Supreme Court blocked that effort before the policy was set to expire. U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that we could see upwards of 18,000 more illegal immigrant crossings per day should Title 42 be lifted.
Biden has also recently announced a plan to provide an “app” to make it easier for illegal immigrants seeking asylum to schedule appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP),
“They are bending to the pressure from the far left to abandon enforcement laws in this country and just look at where it has gotten us,” Tuberville said. “Yes, we need help. The border patrol needs help. ICE needs help.”
Tuberville said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told him that the new temporary processing facility in Eagle Pass, which was erected shortly after President Biden’s inauguration to alleviate overcrowding of apprehended illegal immigrants at border stations, costs American taxpayers $14 million per month. In 2021, the illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border traveled from more than 160 countries.
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Alabama) also recently visited the southern border.
“What we witnessed these past 24 hours was gut-wrenching,” said Sen. Britt. “The raw numbers alone tell us that there is an unprecedented national security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border. However, seeing it up close was truly eye-opening, underlining the historic magnitude of the problem and giving faces to the very real human cost of the reckless policies that have caused this disaster.
Tuberville is in his first term representing Alabama in the U.S. Senate. Tuberville lives in Auburn. Before his Senate service, Tuberville had a long, distinguished career in coaching, including as the head football coach at Auburn University.
