House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Monday challenged President Joe Biden to “bring Air Force One” to the Southwest border and tell border agents “that this is beyond a crisis.”
McCarthy, who traveled with a group of 12 Republicans to El Paso, Texas, on Monday to tour border facilities, told Fox News in an interview after the group’s press conference that the current administration has created “more than a crisis,” at the border thanks to their immigration policies.
“It's worse than a crisis,” McCarthy told “America Reports.”
“This is a human heartbreak. We have our brand-new facility to care for these children and he built it beyond capacity thinking they would never reach it. Today they just set the anniversary of the date they broke capacity, more than 1,040 children, and it's growing every day. What that means is 120 of these border agents that have done an extraordinary job can't be on the border protecting us.”
He added: "This is where (Biden) should bring Air Force One. This is where he should look the people in the eye. This is where he should talk to the border agents and let them know that this is beyond a crisis. He can continue to deny it, but the only way to solve it is to first admit what he has done. If he will not reverse action, it will take congressional action to do it."
McCarthy also used the occasion to blast Biden's recent speech about COVID-19 restrictions.
"At a time when our president would keep our country closed, and when maybe we have hope for a Fourth of July just to get together, maybe, with our families, how much spread of COVID is he creating every single day by his policies along this border? It’s wrong and it has to end and it needs to end now," he said. “The safety and security of Americans and our border is the job of the President. He is the one who created this (crisis), and he is the one who can fix it.”
Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., said his time as a prosecutor at the Justice Department and his experience with drug cartels in the area leads him to believe illicit operations are exploiting border weaknesses more than usual.
“I had a fundamental understanding then, and I do now, that the cartels know when to exploit the southern border, and they’re doing it now masterfully,” Katko said. “They’re doing it because President Biden rolled back a lot of the orders of the previous administration that were working.”
He added: "There is indeed disorder at the border by executive order.”
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, recently criticized the Biden administration for not contacting border communities last week after sending a delegation to the area.
“You know, the president sent a delegation and a bunch of folks from the White House,” Cuellar told Fox News last Friday. “They didn’t talk to anybody, not even members of Congress down here.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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