Click here or on the image above to watch Senator Capito’s floor speech.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, today led her Republican colleagues in highlighting the multifaceted crisis at the southern border created by President Biden’s inaction, as well as the impact this crisis creates on American communities and national security, and the need for substantive policy changes.  

HIGHLIGHTS:

IMPACT ON AMERICA: “The American people see the numbers, but it's not just numbers. They see the actual human effects within their own cities and states of this rampant illegal immigration. It can no longer be ignored. In just the past year, there have been more than 2.4 million illegal encounters on our southern border. We've all seen them on our television sets. That is more than 180% increase since Fiscal Year 2019. 169 encounters with individuals on our country's terror watch list, six times the amount of past year, and fentanyl seizures along the U.S. Mexico border have hit record highs.”

WEST VIRGINIA CONCERNS: “I hear about this topic from West Virginians frequently. Constituents have expressed border security concerns to me – things like the catastrophic, flawed, and failed Biden-Harris approach to immigration and the loss of control of our southern border. The vulnerable state that our communities are left in by the flow of human trafficking and illicit drugs currently coming across our border. And the need to bolster our national security with the increase in crossings from the terror watch list.”

NATIONAL SECURITY: “As Leader McConnell stated on this same floor yesterday, ‘national security begins with border security.’ We can and should take needed action to mitigate the threats that we face. This starts by securing our southern border and making the policy changes necessary to defend our homeland from nefarious forces abroad.”

REPUBLICAN SOLUTIONS: “Now's the time to come to the table. Republicans stand for solutions that enforce and enhance not just the immigration laws that we have on the books, but the policy changes that we're advocating for. We back our hard working CBP agents and guards on the ground who are overwhelmed and under-supported. And, we need to finish the border wall and provide the necessary level of deterrence that we desperately need.”

TIME TO COME TOGETHER: “I implore my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to recognize the importance of the effort and of this moment. We simply do not have time to waste. We need to come together, secure our southern border and fulfill the other national security obligations that are demanded of a nation as powerful as ours.”

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