Last week, U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Alabama) joined a group of Republican colleagues to reiterate the need for strong policy changes at the U.S. southern border. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) organized the press conference.
“Senator Graham, thank you for hosting this, thank you for continuing to bring attention to this,” Sen. Britt said, “And thank you for all of the gentlemen behind me who continue to work diligently to actually secure our border. That’s what the American people deserve, but unfortunately, Joe Biden refuses to give that to them. You know, when we look at this emergency supplemental, when we look at this national security supplemental, when we look at what Joe Biden sent us, he put money for the border in there. But do you know what that was? It was stuff that continues to facilitate the mass migration that we see across our border. It was yet more of a magnet to draw more and more people here.”
Britt accused the mainstream media of not covering the story about human rights abuses taking place on the border.
“We have both a national security and a humanitarian crisis on our border,” Sen. Britt continued. “The liberal media has decided to turn a blind eye to the fact that women are being raped on our border. That children are being recycled on our border. That we have laws that allow that to happen, and actually, that’s what some of these children are going through.”
Britt said that Senate Democrats are doing nothing to address Biden’s border crisis.
“Guys, when are you going to actually call it like it is and not like the liberal left wants you to? The reality is these policies are inhumane,” Britt asked. “You look at the national security threat of this. Y’all, we’ve gone through a week where we’ve had 10,000 come over the border, 10,000 come over the border, 12,000 – an all-time high – and to what Senator Thune said, Secretary Jeh Johnson under President Obama said 1,000 a day would be a crisis. We’re hitting 12 (12,000).”
Britt urged Congress to address this situation finally.
“We must secure our border for the safety and security of the American people,” Britt said. “I don’t want to sit across from another momma who lost their child to fentanyl poisoning. I don’t want to look out and see the travesty that occurs as a result of this. And at the end of the day, when we’re putting policies in place to ensure that we have national security, the first among all of these must be the border.”
Conditions have worsened at the border, and now criminals and terrorists can slip in, disguised in the flood of people crossing the border.
Britt continued, “Senator Graham asked the questions yesterday. He asked Director (Chris) Wray about this. This is the response. He said, ‘I’ve never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated all at exactly the same time.’ He followed up with, ‘I see blinking lights everywhere I turn.’ He said a heightened threat environment from foreign terrorist organizations for a whole host of reasons and obviously their ability to exploit any port of entry, including our southwest border.”
“Senate Democrats and Joe Biden are putting the American people last,” Britt concluded. “We need to make sure we create deterrents. We need to make sure we create safety, and we must do more for the people here at home. They deserve it, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to fight for.”
The press conference was led by Senator Graham and included Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), John Thune (R-North Dakota), Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina).
Katie Britt has made the southern border a point of emphasis since she joined the Senate eleven months ago. Since President Biden took office, there have been more than 8 million illegal crossings at the southern border, including more than 1.7 million known “gotaways.” Known border crossings totaled more than 242,000 last month, another record-setting high for November.
Britt is the Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee for the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
