05/09/2023 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 05/09/2023 11:28
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, joined the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans John Cornyn (R-Texas), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Josh Hawley (R-Miss.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), John Kennedy (R-La.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to send a letter to President Joe Biden urging the White House to reverse the administration's decision to end Title 42.
About Tile 42, Sen. Cruz said at a recent press conference:
"Over six million people have crossed illegally under Joe Biden. Last year, over 100,000 people died of drug overdoses, the vast majority of which was Chinese fentanyl streaming across the border under Joe Biden. We saw just this week, in Texas, the horrific consequences. A mass murderer, who in cold blood assassinated five people, a family, including an eight-year-old child. We now know that mass murder was an illegal alien who had repeatedly entered the country illegally, been repeatedly deported, and yet, because under Joe Biden's open border policy ICE is prevented from deporting dangerous illegal immigrants, he was here to commit that mass murder."
In the letter Sen. Cruz and his Republican colleagues wrote:
"We shudder to think about how much worse the situation at the border would have been over the past three years had it not been for the deterrent effect of Title 42. Over the past three years, the Title 42 order has been a lifeline to the men and women of Border Patrol, who have been working heroically 24 hours a day to secure our southern border amid the worst border crisis in our lifetimes. Even with Title 42 in place, illegal crossings at the border have been at all-time highs."
The senators noted that since the initial order was issued in March 2020, the authority has been used 2.7 million times, including 1.5 million times in just the past 18 months. Of the 2.3 million encounters in fiscal year 2022, one million were processed under Title 42.
The senators also took issue with and criticized the proposed rule the Biden administration has put forth, titled "The Circumvention of Lawful Pathways" to address the issue when Title 42 expires.
"Nothing in this [Biden] rule prevents aliens from making frivolous asylum claims. Instead, under the terms of the rule, aliens are encouraged to schedule a time to present at a port of entry through the CBP One mobile application, after which time many, if not most, will subsequently claim asylum. …Whether done through the CBP One mobile app or not, this gaming of our asylum system is a major pull factor that is causing the border crisis in the first place, and until your administration has a serious plan to address that, the authority Title 42 gives will still be necessary.
"Our border remains under assault. The resources of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) remain under tremendous strain. The introduction of 13,000 encounters every day to this crisis would be the equivalent of throwing gasoline on an already raging fire."
Full text of the letter is available here
Sen. Cruz has led the fight to secure the border:
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