Republican lawmakers Monday demanded the Biden administration release data related to the border crisis “either not being adequately monitored or being hidden from members of Congress and the public.”
The Biden administration is facing more pressure from Republicans to handle the growing migration of illegal southern border crossings as tens of thousands of individuals, many of whom are unaccompanied children abandoned at the border, continue to cross over into the United States from Mexico. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 172,000 people trying to gain entry along the Southwest border in March. That figure is a 71% increase over February 2021.
REPUBLICANS TURN UP PRESSURE ON DEMOCRATIC LEADERS TO VISIT SOUTHERN BORDER
Members of the conservative Republican Study Committee sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, informing the Biden Cabinet members that lawmakers want specific information related to how the administration is facilitating illegal border crossings.
“While we learned much on this trip, it is clear that there are many aspects of the border crisis that are not being adequately monitored or that are being hidden from members of Congress and the public,” they write.
This includes data explaining: the number of illegal border crossers that are released by federal agencies into the U.S., which federal agencies and to what extent they are tracking unaccompanied children apprehended at the border, whether federal agencies are using genetic tests to see if the unaccompanied children are related to the groups they arrive with or are related to the sponsors they are sent to live with, U.S. locations where migrants are released into and whether state and local officials are given advance notice, and which federal agencies are providing transportation into the cities the migrants are released into and the type of identification (if any) they are required to show.
The RSC, headed up by Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, visited the border earlier in the month and toured a border facility in the Eagle Pass and Del Rio sector of Texas. In their letter to Mayorkas and Becerra, they explained, “Federal and local agents repeatedly told us that they simply do not have the resources to secure the border, stop illegal crossers, combat human smugglers, arrest drug cartel associates, and prevent terrorists from entering the United States.”
? #BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan, @RepJohnKatko, and @RepJamesComer request meeting with @VP Kamala Harris to discuss how the Biden-Harris Administration plans to end the #BidenBorderCrisis. pic.twitter.com/rMPddD5Qh6
— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) April 19, 2021
Other Republican lawmakers who visited the southern border are looking for answers from members of the Biden administration as well. The top Republicans on the House Judiciary, Oversight, and Homeland Security Committees sent a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris requesting a meeting to discuss the border crisis.
