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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 24, 2021
CONTACTS:
Christian McMullen, (806) 224-5216
Reilly Knecht, (806) 252-6133
Arrington: Biden’s Border Crisis Is Hammering Our States. It’s Time To Affirm Their Sovereign Powers.
WASHINGTON, DC—In an op-ed carried by Fox News, Congressman Jodey Arrington (TX-19) highlighted his call for states to use their constitutional power to defend themselves against cartel-facilitated invasions and protect their citizens.
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Full article text:
Rep. Jodey Arrington: Biden’s border crisis is hammering our states. Time to affirm their sovereign powers
Across the country, Americans are celebrating the “return to normal” after a year defined by government-mandated shutdowns, widespread rioting, and divisive identity politics.
Border communities, however, are experiencing an unprecedented flood of illegal immigration that is anything but “normal.” These communities and their residents have a front-row seat to an utterly terrifying scene: 950% increase in border apprehensions; 3,000% increase in arrests of convicted sex offenders; seizures of enough fentanyl to kill every American four times over, and an unfazed federal government that is failing to address the horror at our border.
On top of their obsessive tirade to repeal every policy with President Trump’s name on it, the Biden administration has crippled our immigration enforcement and refused to uphold the rule of law. President Biden’s unilateral unraveling of the Trump policies that gave us more secure borders, safer communities, and a respect for our nation’s laws is already having catastrophic consequences.
Earlier this year, reports claimed that cartels were earning up to $14 million per day smuggling people across the border. Last month’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports show more fentanyl has been seized in the first seven months of this year than all of 2020.
Our ranchers are seeing their property destroyed, their homes ransacked, and their very lives threatened.
As cartels smuggle people, drugs, and criminal activity across our border at unprecedented rates, families are rightly terrified of the dangers they are bringing. This surge in crime will threaten our country for years to come as trafficked individuals pay off their debts and disperse the contraband given to them by dangerous narco-terrorist cartels.
Despite undeniable data, devastating stories, and pleas from Americans living at the border, President Biden and his Border Czar, Kamala Harris, have flippantly dismissed the problem, refused to visit the border, and even had the audacity to blame the current crisis on climate change.
While he continues to deny the crisis at the border, President Biden’s own FBI Director recently admitted that there is “no question” that cartel activity from Mexico is “spilling over” into the United States.
While the Left doubles down on their claim that climate change is driving hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants across our border each month, the American people will not be so easily duped. Those who look closely can see the clear cause and effect of this problem – President Biden’s failure to honor his constitutional oath to “faithfully execute” the laws of the land, and his abdication of his sacred responsibility to protect the American people.
In the Preamble of our Constitution, our Founding Fathers outlined the chief responsibility of the federal government to “provide for the common defense.”
The Constitution also clearly states the federal government “shall protect each of [the states] against invasion.” But ask anyone living in our border states and they’ll tell you: President Biden won’t even acknowledge the invasion, let alone take the steps necessary to protect them.
Despite the devastation and despair of this situation, we can take solace in the brilliant design of our constitutional republic and the powerful, yet often forgotten, principle of states’ rights.
The Founding Fathers explicitly empowered our states with the right to combat this crisis and do what our federal government has failed to do – defend our border and protect our citizens.
Article I Section 10 of the Constitution gives states the explicit authority to defend themselves from an invasion when the federal government fails to do so by expressly guaranteeing states the sovereign power to repel an invasion and defend their citizenry from overwhelming and “imminent danger.”
Because of the ingenious nature of our Constitution, states don’t have to be passive victims of President Biden’s border security failures. States have the inherent constitutionally protected right to defend themselves and their citizens.
In Texas, Gov. Abbot is beginning to exercise his constitutional authority to address this crisis and is even seeking to resume construction of the border wall. The governors of Florida and Nebraska have even sent state troopers to the border to address the commander in Chief’s failure to address this worsening crisis.
In Congress, I have led nearly 50 of my House colleagues in introducing a resolution affirming the sovereign power of states to defend themselves against the paramilitary network of cartels that have terrorized our southern border and ravaged our country.
During his first inaugural address, Ronald Reagan was clear, “All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.”
As President Biden continues to ignore the border crisis his policies have created, Reagan’s reminder seems prescient. Now is the time for more states to take heed.
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Congressman Jodey Arrington is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives serving the Nineteenth Congressional District of Texas. He serves as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
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