House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-NC) said in a statement Monday evening that all Democrats on the Committee are pulling out from attending a hearing in the field about President Joe Biden’s ongoing crisis at the U.S. southern border.
The news comes as the administration has seen a historic flood of millions of illegal immigrants pouring into the U.S. under its watch which is largely occurring because Biden’s policies are acting as magnets for the migrants and cartel smugglers. The New York Times reported last year that the Mexican drug cartels went from making $500 million a year from human smuggling in 2018 to making $13 billion from human smuggling in 2022, a 2,500% increase.
“It’s deeply disappointing that the Minority members of the Committee have chosen to bail on this week’s full committee field hearing in Texas, only after they invited and confirmed a minority witness for one of the panels,” Green said in a statement. “The only message their absence sends is that they are uninterested in coming to the table to have a conversation about the devastation that this border crisis is having on Americans and their communities across the country. We will continue to encourage our Democrat colleagues to get out of the DC echo chamber and meet Americans where they are to discuss the biggest issues facing them.”
Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-MS) claimed that Democrats will not participate because “it has become clear that Republicans planned to politicize this event from the start.”
“Instead of a fact-finding mission to develop better border security and immigration policies, Republicans are traveling to the border to attack the Administration and try to score political points with their extreme rhetoric,” Thompson falsely claimed. “Committee Democrats are in regular contact with Department leadership and stakeholders on the ground and will be taking substantive site visits to the border – including as soon as this week.”
All Democrats on the House Homeland Security committee are boycotting Wednesday’s field hearing on the border crisis here in the RGV. They will be missing out on testimony from United States Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, @USBPChief, who is set to testify as a federal witness.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 13, 2023
