Texas Republican Chip Roy claims the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to secure the southern border, despite the administration doing exactly what he’s been demanding, by continuing to enforce the debunked Title 42 order. The Biden administration has in fact expanded it.
So, the Texas Republican has introduced his own border security plan: defund the department that oversees border security, apparently. Roy urged his colleagues during a House speech Monday “to stop funding a Department of Homeland Security that refuses to secure the border of the United States.” He promised that the newly-empowered Republicans would do that “this year.”
It’s not often (or ever) that I find myself agreeing with the likes of an abhorrent election denier, but to this, I say, let’s fucking go.
Roy’s apparent quest to defund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would seemingly affect operations over at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the latter of which oversees thousands of border agents. These agencies have been rife with all sorts of misconduct, abuses against children and adults alike, and outright defiance of congress. Yet they have continued to receive billions upon billions in funding annually.
Immigrant rights advocates have long urged congress to hold these agencies accountable through the purse, partly because nothing ever seems to happen to abusive agents when it comes to other forms of accountability. Some might see defunding federal immigration enforcement agencies—or DHS itself—as a left-wing fantasy. But, hey, it looks like it’s a bipartisan demand these days. President Biden really has brought us all together!
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Roy, during the House floor speech, also appeared to take aim at the president’s recent visit to the southern border, which Republicans have been demanding since he took office nearly two years ago. During that El Paso visit, the president traveled to one of the region’s busiest ports of entry, made an unexpected stop at the border wall, and toured a service center that aids migrants recently processed and released by federal immigration officials.
No one really believes one border stop fixes anything, but as pointed out by observers, visiting these centers sure is more productive than attacking these centers, as Texas Republicans, in particular, have done.
Fine, visit done. But these Republican demands have always been in bad faith, and Roy, during his floor speech, dismissed the visit as “a show trip.” Speaker-for-now Kevin McCarthy also dismissed it as a “photo-op.” Projection: Holding a photo-op at the border is exactly what Kevin did last year, when he needed to get attention off himself after being caught in a Jan. 6 lie. So he pivoted to attack immigrants, as Republicans like to do when in hot water.
Speaking of Republicans now being in control: last month, there was the report that no Republican wanted to chair the House committee tasked with border-related issues. We know why: it’s much easier to complain about immigration when you’re in the minority, and leave all the actual work and thinking to others (Democrats).
But back to Roy. His border security plan appears to be to defund the border security department, so is he the one now arguing for open borders? He’s a deeply unserious character who apparently gets a kick out of being an asshole. But if we entertain Roy’s ranting and believe for a moment that he’s serious about holding DHS accountable for whatever reasons he has, hey, there could be some pro-migrant lawmakers across the aisle willing to join him for their own reasons too.
