Fact-Checking the White House on Immigration — and Amnesty
Are ‘House Republicans ... getting in the way of doing the work to deal with what we’re seeing at the border’?
By Andrew R. Arthur on January 8, 2024
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre last week attempted to deflect blame for the disaster at the Southwest border onto President Biden’s congressional political opponents, asserting: “House Republicans keep getting in the way of doing the work to deal with what we’re seeing at the border.” That’s a questionable proposition, to be kind, but note that Jean-Pierre also put in a plug for amnesty as a cure for what’s ailing our overwhelmed Border Patrol Agents at the U.S.-Mexico line.
“Republicans in the House Voted to Get Rid of 2,000 Agents”? If you’re wondering what, exactly, House Republicans are doing to “get in the way of” securing the border, you need to go up a few lines in the White House read-out of that press conference, where Jean-Pierre asserted:
If you look at the national security supplemental that the President put forward, he put border security in there — right? — because he believes in order to get the work done at the border, we need more resources. DHS needs more resources. Our Border Patrol agents need more resources. We need more immigration judges. We need more resources to get this done. We need the technology at the border to deal with what’s going on with migrants at the border.
And — and, you know — you know, last May, the Speaker and Republican — the Republicans in the House, they voted to get rid of 2,000 — 2,000 Border Patrol agents. I mean, that’s their focus. So, of course, that’s not helpful.
I understand that most Republicans are fiscal conservatives by nature (assuming the money in question isn’t going to their home districts), but cutting Border Patrol agents in the face of a mass surge in illegal entrants hardly seems the place to start. But did congressional Republicans really attempt to take the axe to 2,000 agents in May?
Not if you believe Newsweek, which fact-checked this claim — which apparently was first made by the White House last March — on May 21.
https://cis.org/Arthur/FactChecking-White-House-Immigration-and-Amnesty
