Rep. Brian Babin, who is proposing legislation to establish a block grant program that will allow border states to continue wall construction at the U.S.-Mexico border, told Newsmax Tuesday his action comes because the crisis at the border is something President Joe Biden and his administration "do not care to address."
"We know walls work," the Texas Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "We've seen the numbers. We've seen the statistics where walls were built in San Diego and out in El Paso and all along the border."
But Biden, with his "radical philosophy," has stopped wall construction, and that has put an "enormous burden on the border authorities," said Babin.
Babin's "Securing Our Border States Act," according to a video on his Facebook page, would establish a fund program that states can draw from so the border wall construction can continue. According to the plan, once a southwest border state's governor certifies that funding is needed for wall construction, the money from the fund would go directly to that state, bypassing the president's ability to stop the money for political reasons.
"In order to get that out of the hands of President Biden's administration so that he could not stop legitimately appropriated funding to construct this border wall, we have introduced a bill and this has been in conjunction with the Republican Study Committee and a number of my colleagues," said Babin on Newsmax.
He noted that he's visited every state on the U.S. southern border and that he took three groups of colleagues there this year alone.
"We've seen these gaps," he said. "We've seen the unfinished walls. We've seen the unfinished incomplete gates where they have to man it with the actual Border Patrol agents rather than a mechanism that can open and close it and so this will give funding to complete a lot of this construction, and Biden won't be able to touch it."
Babin admitted that the bill likely won't "see the light of day" in the House or the Senate, given the Democrats' control, but "nevertheless we have to do something to try to get monies into the hands of our states that are trying to protect themselves."
He also said that he applauds the efforts of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and governors who have offered help to remedy the issue.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has announced that it is officially lifting the use of Title 42, a policy used during the Trump administration to keep immigrants out during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Babin said that already, that poses an "enormous" problem.
"We've got a massive outbreak going on at the southern border because of the open border situation and the border crisis," he said. "We've got a number of Border Patrol agents and other officers who have covid down there. Many states are preparing to lock down again and mask mandates ... here we are letting these people in with COVID."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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