For the Sixth Time, Oversight Republicans Call for a Hearing on Biden’s Border Crisis
Committee Democrats continue to ignore a national security and humanitarian catastrophe while holding hearings on pet collars and an NFL team
WASHINGTON — Today, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) and Oversight Committee Republicans sent a letter to Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) blasting Democrats’ for failing to conduct meaningful oversight over the Biden Administration’s self-inflicted humanitarian and national security crisis at the U.S. southern border. Apprehensions of illegal border crossings have reached historic levels, with more than two million apprehensions expected just this fiscal year, and the Republican lawmakers are again requesting an immediate hearing on the escalating crisis.
“We write, for the sixth time this Congress, to request that you immediately begin holding oversight hearings on the worsening border crisis. The Committee on Oversight and Reform continues to waste its time on hearings outside its oversight and legislative jurisdiction, including pet flea and tick collars and the workplace culture at a National Football League team. Meanwhile, the Committee continues to ignore the border crisis which is exacerbated by waste, fraud, abuse, and gross mismanagement in the Biden Administration. The Biden Administration repeatedly boasts of promoting ‘safe, orderly, and humane migration.’ But the southern border is dangerous, chaotic, and inhumane,” wrote the Republican lawmakers.
On March 4, 2021, Republican lawmakers first requested Chairwoman Maloney to convene a hearing on the deteriorating situation at the border. They renewed the request again on March 25, 2021, June 2, 2021, October 26, 2021, and January 31, 2022. Since Republicans requested a hearing over a year ago, illegal immigration has soared and U.S. Border Patrol made nearly 223,000 arrests of illegal border crossers in May 2022 alone. Hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossers have been released into the interior of the United States and cartels have capitalized off the chaos. Tragically, smugglers recently murdered 53 migrants by abandoning them locked in a tractor trailer in the hot sun.
“The Committee on Oversight and Reform exists to provide congressional oversight to ensure that the federal government is working efficiently and effectively on behalf of the American people. The border crisis demands our oversight. Therefore, we are disappointed in your silence. One Committee Democrat recently suggested that our Committee does not possess oversight authority over immigration policy or the border. This is simply untrue. In fact, Committee Democrats held multiple immigration and border related hearings last Congress. You also recently asserted that ‘[w]e have authority to investigate anything and everything.’ So why do you continue to ignore the worst border crisis in American history?” continued the Republican lawmakers. “We must hold the Biden Administration accountable for its decisions surrounding this and other crises confronting our nation. Our failure to act now will only prolong a miserable situation and allow fraud, waste, and abuse to continue impacting southern border policies.”
Read the letter here.