Border between U.S. and Mexico (AP/Charlie Riedel)
“People on the terrorist watch list, [Border Patrol] are catching. And they’re rushing [the border] all at once,” said McCarthy.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
During a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas on Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that the crisis on the border has become a national security risk.
In 2021, the number of people attempting to illegally cross the southern border into the U.S. has skyrocketed, including record-breaking numbers of children and unaccompanied minors.
But according to McCarthy, not everyone trying to cross the border is an economic migrant in search of a better life.
“It’s not just people from Mexico or Honduras or El Salvador. They’re now finding people from Yemen, from Iran, from Turkey,” he told Fox News.
“People on the terrorist watch list, [Border Patrol] are catching. And they’re rushing [the border] all at once.”
Leading a delegation of Republican lawmakers, McCarthy said the situation was a result of President Biden’s lax stance on illegal immigration.
“The security of our nation and our border is first and foremost the responsibility of our president,” he said.
“This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration. There’s no other way to claim it, than a Biden border crisis.”
Democrats are currently gearing up to introduce a new Biden-backed comprehensive immigration reform bill, which could potentially provide a route to citizenship for the some 11 million people living illegally in the U.S.
During his campaign, Biden promised to end “kids in cages” – a policy in which unaccompanied minors caught illegally crossing the border are kept in jail-like facilities.
The policy was originally implemented by former President Barack Obama, and earned former President Donald Trump harsh criticism.
As of March 2021, migrant facilities for children are more overcrowded than during the Trump era, due to a surge in illegal crossing attempts, a direct result of immigrants believing that the Biden administration would go easier on them than the Trump administration and they would be able to remain in the States.
Last week, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol revealed that at least 100,000 people tried to cross the border in February alone – the highest number on record, and a 28% increase from January.
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