OPINION:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long said that walls are immoral. Apparently, she’s changed her mind — or maybe lost it.
Everyone in the world has seen the 7-foot steel wall topped with coils of razor wire she had built around our nation’s Capitol — including the U.S. Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and all House and Senate office buildings.
For the last nine weeks, tens of thousands of our national guardsmen have been deployed to our nation’s capital to protect us from a nonexistent crisis at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the American taxpayer, disrupting everyday life in Washington for thousands. Mrs. Pelosi’s needless wall has remained standing despite the FBI and others in the intelligence community, saying there is no credible threat.
However, there is a true domestic crisis where a wall and thousands of national guardsmen are actually needed.
Since Joe Biden was elected, a continual surge of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border has posed a credible threat to our national security and our sovereignty, and at an incalculable cost to the hardworking taxpayer. For reference, in February alone, more than 100,000 migrants were apprehended crossing our southern border illegally. And that’s just the ones we caught.
Frankly, this is worse than a crisis. It’s a catastrophe.
Thanks to the negligent and politically charged policies from this new administration, the drug cartels have once again taken control of our southern border. They’ve been emboldened to traffic humans and deadly drugs into our country without fear of retribution from the United States government — and they’re enriching themselves in the process.
Our border authorities and facilities are overworked and under-equipped, and unfortunately, here in Mrs. Pelosi’s ivory tower, we are consuming resources that would certainly be better spent at the border.
You know what would mitigate this situation? Step one: Admit that there is a crisis. Step two: Fully utilize Title 42 to stop the spread of COVID-19 into our country. Step three: End catch-and-release. Step four: Resume deportations. Step five: Stop promising mass amnesty to illegal immigrants. And for God’s sake, finish construction of the border wall; otherwise, these steps are pointless.
Walls work, and the left knows it. If walls didn’t work, Democratic leadership in Congress wouldn’t have had one constructed around our workplace. Why are the Democrats spending more time and resources on protecting themselves in Washington than they are on protecting the American people? It’s outrageously hypocritical.
Instead of sealing off our citadel of liberty because of an imaginary threat, the left has opened the flood gates to a real one. Please stop the dangerous political games and work with us to protect all Americans against the terrible threats we’re facing on the southern border.
• Brian Babin, a Republican U.S. representative from Texas, is co-chair of the House Border Security Caucus.
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