Senator Scott Statement on Biden’s Border Trip 

WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) issued the following statement regarding President Biden’s trip to Brownsville, Texas:

“President Biden’s visit to the southern border is a halfhearted attempt to pay lip service to the crisis his policies have caused. He couldn’t be bothered to visit the region that is suffering the most due to chaos at the border. Two weeks ago, I visited Eagle Pass, Texas, and came away with the unmistakable fact that our border is broken and those tasked with guarding it need real help. President Biden can fix this crisis, and I hope his visit is the wakeup call he needs to use the authority he already has to build the border wall, reinstate Title 42, and end catch-and-release, so that we can finally secure our border, uphold our national security, and keep Americans safe.”

Senator Scott recently visited the U.S.-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, Texas, where he met with border patrol officers and federal officials, discussed the ongoing illegal immigration crisis, and called on President Biden to secure the southern border and end the largest invasion in American history.

BACKGROUND

Senator Scott has pushed back against the Biden administration’s open border policies and fought to secure the southern border by:

• Visiting the U.S.-Mexico border to discuss the illegal immigration crisis with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and federal officials;
• Championing the Creating Obstructions Necessary to Address Illegal and Nefarious Entry Rapidly (CONTAINER) Act, which empowers border states to place temporary barriers on federal land in order to protect their communities;
• Advocating for the Keep Our Border Agents Paid Act, which ensures U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and contractors continue to be paid in the event of a shutdown as President Biden’s southern border crisis continues to spiral out of control;
• Fighting for the Secure the Border Act of 2023 to address the Biden administration’s open border crisis by increasing the number of Border Patrol Agents, resuming construction on the border wall, tightening asylum standards, criminalizing visa overstays, and prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security from using its app to assist illegal immigrants;
• Condemning the Department of Defense’s decision to auction off approximately $260 million worth of border wall construction materials;
• Championing his Securing Our Border Act, which redirects $15 billion of funding passed by Democrats to hire 87,000 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents and utilizes it to bolster security measures along our southern border;
• Introducing the Alan T. Shao II Fentanyl Public Health Emergency and Overdose Prevention Act to utilize powers similar to those under Title 42 so that the Department of Homeland Security continues to expedite the processing and removal of migrants illegally entering the country in response to the fentanyl-related public health emergency; and
• Authoring his bipartisan Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act, a sanctions and anti-money laundering bill aimed at combatting the country’s fentanyl crisis by targeting the illicit fentanyl supply chain, from the chemical suppliers in China to the cartels that traffic the drugs in from Mexico. The bill was unanimously voted out of the Senate Banking Committee and earned 66 Senate cosponsors.