If it wasn’t for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise narrating the scene at the U.S.-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas, viewers of his new video could have confused it for a stream of fans walking to a soccer stadium or some other event:
Nicely dressed adults and children, guided by men in khakis and vests, streaming by the Louisiana lawmaker — seven in one group, more in the background.
But instead, Scalise said those behind him were illegal immigrants being shepherded from Mexico to a Customs and Border Protection processing facility, a nonstop procession.
?? LIVE from the border:
This is out of control. It’s the middle of the night. We’ve seen dozens of children flow freely across the border in just the past few minutes.
This is the reality of Joe Biden’s disastrous amnesty agenda. pic.twitter.com/kPCPAclpvd
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) April 9, 2021
“We just saw a large number of kids just come running across the border, here they are right here,” he said, pointing to a group behind him, directed along by border officials.
“It’s going on all around us,” he said, apparently referring to his group of lawmakers who traveled to the border for a close-up view of the crisis, one still unwitnessed by President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Probably over 100 people right here just in the last hour,” he said.
His trip was the latest by Republican officials to view the security and humanitarian crisis there, and to blame Biden for opening the border and killing the quiet former President Donald Trump had finally brought to the area.
“They’re coming into America because Joe Biden has created this magnet where he said the border’s open. And look at what’s happening. This is out of control,” said Scalise.
?Update from the #BidenBorderCrisis: Last night we saw migrants flowing across the border in rafts. Border patrol agents told me this surge is due to the Biden administration ending the remain in Mexico policy.
This is more than a crisis. It’s a humanitarian disaster. pic.twitter.com/C5cZE9rde9
— Richard Hudson (@RepRichHudson) April 9, 2021
Fellow GOP lawmaker Richard Hudson of North Carolina chimed in with his own video from the banks of the Rio Grande River.
“We’ve seen just in the last 30 minutes or so five or six groups come across in rafts. A lot of young children. This is more than a crisis, this is a humanitarian disaster,” he said.
The videos are similar to those posted a week ago by Senate Republicans describing the escalating disaster of crossings, now at a 20-year high and still unanswered by the White House.
It is also becoming a financial disaster. A Washington Post report indicated that it is costing taxpayers at least $260 million a month to care for and house the migrants who were remaining in Mexico before Biden took office.
Both groups of lawmakers also echoed law enforcement concerns that criminal gangs are using groups of migrants to draw Border Patrol agents away from other border openings, through which they are running drugs and conducting other illegal activities, including slipping in potential terrorists.
Hudson said, “No telling what’s coming across our border.”
