Under President Biden, the southern border was a mess. Thousands of illegal immigrants were crossing the border every single day, Border Patrol agents were overwhelmed, and the consequences of this chaos were affecting communities around the country, including in South Dakota. The worst part: It was avoidable. But President Biden chose not to enforce our laws and secure the border, and chaos reigned as a result.
Border security isn’t a choice, it’s an obligation. After he took office last year, President Trump wasted no time securing the border. We saw illegal crossings drop precipitously, and border agents weren’t spread so thin anymore, so they could spend more time stopping cartels and other criminals. The police chief in Sioux Falls has even said that “some of the measures taken within the southern border are paying dividends within our community.”
This is the way things should be, and last summer Republicans provided resources in the Working Families Tax Cuts to ensure the border stays secure for years to come. This landmark bill provides the resources necessary to finish the border wall and deploy additional barriers and technology to secure the border. There was funding to support hiring new border agents and to bring on more immigration judges to address the massive backlog in immigration cases.
Those resources are making a difference. Thanks to President Trump and the Working Families Tax Cuts, as of the end of last month apprehensions at the southern border are 94 percent lower than they were under the Biden administration. Border Patrol is seeing a few hundred border crossings on a typical day – compared to as many as 10,000 in a single day at times under President Biden. And not a single illegal immigrant has been released from the border in more than a year.
Meanwhile, Democrats continue to embrace open borders. After complicity with the Biden border crisis, Democrats opposed the border security measures in the Working Families Tax Cuts. Then, earlier this year, Democrats took an even more radical position: defunding Border Patrol and ICE. Fortunately, their radical position did not carry the day.
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Rapid City with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. It was great to meet the South Dakotans working in federal law enforcement and to hear about the work that they are doing with South Dakota law enforcement to keep our communities safe – work made possible by a program we bolstered in the Working Families Tax Cuts.
The security of our country and our communities is an important responsibility. Without it, nothing else much matters. I appreciate the law enforcement officers in South Dakota who go to work every day to keep us safe, and I’m proud to be working to support them and provide safer streets for South Dakotans and for all Americans.