Alabama Today
Katie Britt warns that southern border is an “unprecedented national security and humanitarian crisis”
By Brandon Moseley - January 11, 2023
U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and Katie Britt are on an inspection tour of the troubled U.S. southern border. Following her trip, Britt said that the southern border “is an unprecedented national security and humanitarian crisis.”
“What we witnessed these past 24 hours was gut-wrenching,” said Sen. Britt. “The raw numbers alone tell us that there is an unprecedented national security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border. However, seeing it up close was truly eye-opening, underlining the historic magnitude of the problem and giving faces to the very real human cost of the reckless policies that have caused this disaster. This trip was an important opportunity for me to listen to and learn from the people who are facing this every single day, from boots-on-the-ground law enforcement officers to courageous survivors of the cartels’ human and drug trafficking. Now, my team and I will be hard at work formulating and advancing tangible solutions that will help seal and secure the border and defend America’s future.”
Sen. Hyde-Smith shared a video from the trip.
“Unless you have been here, you don’t know it firsthand,” Sen. Hyde-Smith told Fox News. “The human trafficking industry, the drug industry, they are invading this country. It has been so informative.”
“The bad guys that are coming through are wreaking havoc on this country,” Hyde-Smith continued. “We can no longer allow this to happen. It is so amazing that we have laws against this, and they are not enforced.”
The trip was led by Sen. Blackburn.
“The cartels are in charge of that border – the Mexico side of the border,” Blackburn told Fox News. “Human smuggling has gone from being a half-billion business in the last few years to a $15 billion business.”
The senators arrived in the Del Rio Sector Monday evening and immediately attended an operational briefing with leaders from the National Border Patrol Council and officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety. They then went on a nighttime visit to trafficking hotspots along the border, including an area along the banks of the Rio Grande.
Early Tuesday morning, the senators went on an additional tour of several border hotspots. In this leg of the trip, they witnessed migrants crossing the Rio Grande and another group of migrants attempting to cross the river. This latter group included several children and a pregnant woman. Afterward, the senators participated in a roundtable on human trafficking that included a survivor, as well as Rosa Maria de la Garza, a former member of the Mexican Congress. That was followed by a tour of a working Texas ranch whose livelihood has been threatened by the influx of migrants traveling across the property. Next, the senators stopped outside of a temporary CBP migrant processing facility that is costing the American taxpayer $16 million per month to operate. The day concluded with a roundtable comprised of local elected officials and law enforcement officers.
“The Biden Administration stopped construction of the border wall, halted deportations, suspended ‘Remain in Mexico,’ and stopped enforcing border security policies,” Britt, Blackburn, and Hyde-Smith said in a joint statement. “The first thing President Biden must do is enforce the immigration laws that are currently on the books.”
Britt was sworn into the Senate less than a week before the trio’s border visit. She was recently elected to the seat held for decades by Sen. Richard Shelby.