The Emporia Gazette - Rep. LaTurner In The Emporia Gazette: The White House's Title 42 Catastrophe

Op-Ed

It's no surprise that our nation is facing the worst crisis at the southern border in history under the Biden Administration. President Biden embraced an open-borders agenda on the campaign trail--promising widespread amnesty, taxpayer-provided health care, work permits, and unwavering support for sanctuary cities. During his first 100 days in the Oval Office, President Biden took over 90 executive actions to reverse Republicans' successful border security measures. It's no wonder during the first year of his presidency, over two million illegal immigrants were apprehended at our southern border.

We are now four months into President Biden's second year in office, and things at our southern border are only getting worse. There were over 221,300 migrant encounters at the border last month--that's a 542% increase from March 2020 and a new Biden-era high. The United States hit over one million illegal border crossings since October, and Customs and Border Patrol confirmed that over 300,000 illegal immigrants evaded Border Patrol officers in the last six months alone.

What we are seeing take place is much more than individuals seeking asylum. Criminals, weapons, drugs, and trafficked persons are coming across our border in record numbers. Over 913,000 pounds of illegal drugs were seized by Border Patrol last year, including over 11,000 pounds of fentanyl. Although Kansas is not a border state, our communities continue to be impacted by this crisis. Kansas saw a 54% increase in drug overdoses in the first six months of 2021, and half of those were caused by fentanyl. This humanitarian and national security crisis has spiraled out of control.

Now, President Biden has made the catastrophic decision to lift Title 42 restrictions effective May 23, 2022. Instead of working together towards common-sense solutions to help secure the border, President Biden took away the last remaining tool our law enforcement agents had at their disposal to contain this crisis. Title 42 was put into place by the Trump Administration and gave border officials the authority to quickly expel migrants under a public health emergency. In February alone, 55% of the total encounters at the Southern Border were processed for expulsion under Title 42. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), border officials are preparing for up to 18,000 migrants a day once these crucial restrictions end. To put these numbers into perspective, that's the equivalent of the population of Topeka coming across our border each week. At a time when our brave Border Patrol Agents are overworked and understaffed, this new wave of migration will result in absolute chaos.

Despite these jaw-dropping predictions from DHS, President Biden has yet to show how he plans to contain this crisis once Title 42 is lifted. As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, I have been working to keep Title 42 in place until the record number of illegal border crossings drops to a manageable level for our brave law enforcement officers. I recently went to the House Floor to demand a vote on the PAUSE Act, which would keep Title 42 restrictions in place regardless of President Biden's executive action. Democrats rejected my request.

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