The Biden administration tried to hide from reality. But there’s no where left to run and hide.
Because Congress has sent Joe Biden a direct order that leaves him with a terrible choice to make.
As they run for reelection to the lower house, five endangered Democrats who previously opposed border security measures appear to have changed their minds. The change of heart from more and more Democrats in Congress is giving Joe Biden a tough choice to make concerning what to do next about the southern border crisis.
Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Mary Peltola of Alaska, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Don Davis of North Carolina released a joint statement last week in support of calls for Congress and the president to “act and bring order to the southern border,” following President Biden’s signing of a $95 billion bill with assistance to the two nations Ukraine and Israel.
“Beyond defending our allies, we strongly agree with the National Border Patrol Council that Congress and the President must act and bring order to the Southern border,” the congressmen said. “That is why we also voted for H.R. 3602 on Saturday, and why we all voted last month for $19.6 billion for Border Patrol so that it could ramp up its efforts to secure the border.”
The remarks came from the five Democrats after each of them voted against the Secure the Border legislation in 2023. Three of them, Golden, GluesenKamp, and Davis, are running in competitive reelection contests that the Cook Political Report has classified as “toss up” races; the other two, Peltola and Gonzalez, are running in contests classified as “lean Democrat.”
The House approved the bill, which would have increased the number of offenses for which a person is not eligible for asylum, restricted eligibility to individuals who arrive at ports of entry, imposed a system akin to the E-Verify employment eligibility verification system, and increased fines for overstaying a visa.
The same five Democrats not only abstained from voting on the Secure the Border Act, but also twice opposed GOP-led attempts to remove Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom many Republicans claim bears a major portion of the blame for the current immigration problem at the southern border.
Some Democrats, such as Gluesenkamp Perez, who co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition alongside Golden and Peltola and was first elected to Congress in 2022, have been making disparaging remarks regarding the border situation in recent years.
Republicans have previously criticized the Washington congresswoman over remarks she made in March 2023 about borders during an appearance on Pod Save America, which was before the Title 42 public health order ended.
She mentioned that at the time, “Listen, nobody stays awake at night worrying about the southern border. That’s just not… people stay awake at night worrying that their kid is gonna relapse or that, you know, someone’s going to drop out of school or they’re going to lose their house.”
She’s now clearly changed her tune and realized the error of her ways and the direction of the Democrat Party on this issue.
Amidst calls for Mayorkas’ impeachment earlier this year, Gluesenkamp Perez was among the Democrats who stood up for him, stating that it was “frustrating to see” Republicans seek for his removal since “he doesn’t set policy, he implements it.”
Gluesenkamp Perez has recently expressed disapproval of Biden’s handling of the border crisis despite previous statements she’s made. In April, she stated that she voted in favor of H.R. 3602, which imposes criminal penalties for specific actions that impede U.S. border control measures, on the grounds that “President Biden has failed to end the crisis at our Southern Border.”
“Every country has an obligation to protect its citizens and secure its sovereign borders, and H.R. 3602 focuses on the urgent need to restore operational control of the Southern Border. Unlike the unworkable and un-American immigration proposals pushed by far-right extremists, this bipartisan bill doesn’t create burdensome government mandates that would harm small businesses, agricultural employers, rural communities, and our economy,” she claimed at the time.
A press representative for the congresswoman emphasized in a statement to media outlets that she has “called on the Biden Administration her entire time in office to fix the crisis at our Southern Border, and for Congress to do its job to pass meaningful border security legislation.”
The spokesperson also praised the legislators support for the End Fentanyl Act and her introduction of the “Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act to restore operational control at the Southern Border by restoring expulsion authority for Border Patrol and requiring the President to reinstate Remain in Mexico.”
“Marie continues to urge Congress to get back to work to address the real crisis at our border and end the petty gamesmanship,” the spokeswoman continued.
Another Democrat who made disparaging comments before Title 42 expired — which gave U.S. authorities the power to prevent foreign nationals from entering the U.S. in the event of a medical emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic — is Gonzalez.
Gonzalez reportedly dismissed concerns and queries about whether Biden was doing enough to safeguard the southern border in the face of an unprecedented flood of undocumented immigrants during a July 2023 trip in Edinburgh, Texas.
“We have seen major improvements along the border.… If you go to the border now, in our region, it’s pretty unremarkable what you see,” Gonzalez once argued. “When they lifted Title 42 and implemented Title 7, which I advocated against… I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong. What the president did, what Secretary Mayorkas has done, has positively impacted our border and that’s a fact.”
“People could point fingers and say things, but the reality is, undocumented crossings are down by 70%,” he continued at the time.
The Texas Tribune revealed a little over a week after Gonzalez’s comments that Border Patrol officers “made more than 130,000 arrests along the Mexico border in July 2023, preliminary figures show, up from 99,545 in June.”
The Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act, which would have imposed severe federal penalties on undocumented immigrants who elude U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers during car chases, was opposed by 154 Democrats, including Gonzalez. The law was named in honor of a Border Patrol agent who was k*lled in a car accident in Texas during a pursuit last year.
Gonzalez was one of the more than 150 Democrats who voted against the Schools Not Shelters Act in July 2023, together with Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez. The act forbade “the use of the facilities of a public elementary school, a public secondary school, or an institution of higher education to provide shelter for aliens who have not been admitted into the United States, and for other purposes.”
At the time, Davis abstained from voting on the legislation, while Peltola joined 218 Republicans in supporting it.
When asked if he thought Biden was to blame for the border situation, Davis responded, “My votes speak for themselves.”
According to CBP data, the first half of fiscal year 2024 had 1,340,801 total interactions, which is more than the record of 1,226,254 set by the first half of fiscal year 2023.
The Conservative Column will keep you updated on any immigration news.
