Last week, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) signed on as a cosponsor to Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) Secure the Border Act of 2023. Afterward, he explained his concerns about the southern border to the Alabama media.
“The Biden Administration has continued to roll out the welcome mat at our southern border,” said Sen. Tuberville. “His policies have jeopardized our national security, and the numbers don’t lie. The Biden border crisis is the worst border crisis in American history. There have already been seven million illegal border crossings since Joe Biden took office. That is more than the population of Alabama. More than 1.6 million illegal immigrants got away that we know of.”
Tuberville said there is concern that the southern border is being exploited by terrorists.
“We have caught more than fifty people on the terrorist watch list just this year,” Tuberville said. “Imagine all the people that got away.”
Tuberville is also concerned with illegal narcotics coming across the border, particularly fentanyl.
“Drug overdose deaths are breaking records,” said Tuberville. “The Border Patrol has seized enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child in this country. It is causing deadly consequences in Alabama. According to the Alabama Public Health Department, we lost 835 Alabamians to drug overdoses in 2022.”
“We can’t sit by and allow this disaster to continue,” Tuberville said. “That is why I joined Ted Cruz and introduced the Secure the Border Act of 2023 to combat the Biden border crisis. This legislation would fix some fundamental things like finish the wall, increase the number of border patrol agents, and stop taxpayers dollars from being used to transport or house illegal immigrants. The House passed their version of this bill earlier. I hope our colleagues on the other side of the border will work with us to pass this bill secure the nation’s border and protect American lives.”
The Secure the Border Act would:
· Require the Department of Homeland Security to resume border wall construction.
· Increase the number of Border Patrol Agents.
· Tighten asylum standards by restricting asylum to only aliens who present at ports of entry and requiring aliens to prove they are “more likely than not” to qualify for their asylum claim.
· Narrow DHS’s power to unilaterally grant parole to illegal aliens.
· Criminalize visa overstays by making the first offense a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and the second offense a felony punishable by up to a $2,000 fine and up to two years imprisonment.
· Stopping NGOs from using tax dollars to transport or lodge illegal aliens and provide illegal aliens with lawyers.
· Restrict DHS from using its CBP One app to welcome illegal aliens into the country.
· Require employers to use E-Verify.
· Ensure CBP has access to the criminal history databases of all countries of origin and transit so that CBP is aware of the criminal history of illegal aliens encountered at the southern border.
Tommy Tuberville was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020 after a forty-year career of teaching, coaching, and sports broadcasting.
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