Cartels and smugglers have put a “criminal operation” in place to flood the U.S.-Mexico border, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said Tuesday.
Malliotakis added that even with the Biden administration announcing it secured agreements with Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala to increase security along their borders, the situation has become worse.
“I think we have to take a wait-and-see approach here,” Malliotakis said on Fox Business” “Mornings With Maria.” “The crisis is at new levels that I don’t think the American people have seen before.”
At this point, fewer of the asylum claims are “actually legitimate,” she said, and the cartels and smugglers now have a “billion-dollars-a-year” enterprise.
Malliotakis said the excessive migration also is serving as a problem for Customs and Border Protection agents left to see overfilled facilities and unaccompanied minors, and is taking away from their ability to do their jobs to protect the U.S from criminals such as sex or drug traffickers coming across the nations’ border.
“We’re in a very difficult situation, and the president caused it,” Malliotakis said. “He only needs to reverse the policy that he put in place [with an] executive order on Day 1.”
President Joe Biden’s actions have led to a 15-year-high number of immigrants entering the country from across the southern border in March alone, she added.
“What I saw at the border is that people are suffering, being exploited by this cartel operation,” she said. “Some are being put in sex trafficking and many women are being raped on this journey. Children are being abused, so it’s a bad situation for them. It’s a very bad situation for our law enforcement [officers] that are being overrun.”
Malliotakis said the CBP is “begging for help, begging for these policies that President [Donald] Trump had in place to be restored, and the American taxpayers are paying for all of this.”
The border situation also is costing “billions of dollars” and is “totally unsustainable,” said Mailliotakis, who called for Biden administration members to hear what the CBP agents have to say, and to see the situation at the border for themselves.
According to a recent report by The Washington Post, the Biden administration is spending $60 million weekly to care for the more than 16,000 illegal immigrant minors being housed in Department of Health and Human Services shelters.
HHS swiftly filled the 7,700 available beds in its shelters as the number of illegal immigrant unaccompanied minors pouring over the border has surged, and the cost of housing each minor is estimated at about $290 a day.
Malliotakis also talked about Biden’s $2.2 trillion infrastructure bill, noting that the president is willing to negotiate.
But still, she said she feels that if he doesn’t get Republican votes the bill needs to pass, he will “try to jam it through by just changing the rules, which is completely inappropriate.”
Source: Newmax
