Hereford, Arizona — Rep. Kevin McCarthy brought the battle over border security to Arizona on Thursday as part of his first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since being elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives last month.
Arizona has featured prominently in the efforts of House Republicans to spotlight President Joe Biden’s border security failures and the handling of a record number of immigrant encounters on the southern U.S. border with Mexico.
Republican McCarthy, Calif. joined four new Republican congressmen and met with law enforcement, elected leaders and residents of Cochise County before concluding his visit with a tour of the border fence south of the Sierra Vista. rice field.
McCarthy said the decision to visit Cochise County was strategic because of the large number of people trying to cross southeastern Arizona while trying to avoid detection from border officials.
“The sad part about what’s going on is that the country of Mexico doesn’t know who’s leaving the country. America, you don’t know who’s coming in,” McCarthy said. “But there is one organization he knows who is leaving Mexico and who is entering the United States: the Sinaloa Cartel, because no one crosses this border without paying.”
Since taking control of the House in January, Republicans have used their majority position to criticize Biden’s border policies, particularly Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorcas, who has vowed to impeach him.
“Our border, we can’t even manipulate it anymore. This is why we keep investigating what went wrong here,” McCarthy said. And that includes Secretary Mayorcas.We can no longer lie to the American people and say that this border is safe.”
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McCarthy’s visit to Cochise County further cemented the role Arizona was expected to play in efforts to discredit Biden’s border policy, showcasing its newly secured surveillance powers.
Several House committees, now chaired by Republicans, have begun congressional hearings on the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Two hearings were held on Capitol Hill last week, featuring the testimony of John Modlin, Chief Patrol Agent for the Tucson Sector of Border Patrol, which includes Cochise County, and Mark Danells, Cochise County Sheriff. Dunnells on Thursday led a tour of the border.
On Wednesday, the House Committee on Energy and Finance held a field hearing in Texas about the public health implications of the situation at the border. Next Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee will hold another field hearing in Yuma to focus on border security issues.
White House spokesperson Ian Sams responded Wednesday in a written statement to the hearings at the border and to McCarthy’s visit to Cochise County. called for cooperation with the government of
“House Republicans should spend less time on partisan propaganda and more time working on solutions,” Sams said. “President Biden’s focus is on solutions, and his plan is working. would be wise.”
Border security and immigration reform
McCarthy’s visit included four representatives: Arizona Rep. Juan Ciscomani, Oregon Rep. Jen Kigans, and Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Oden, who make up most of Cochise County. 12 freshman Republican lawmakers were included.
Ciscomani, who helped organize Thursday’s visit, took the oath of office last month after changing his district’s House seat from Democrat to Republican. Since then, his profile has begun to rise within the Republican Party. Earlier this month, he responded in Spanish to Biden’s State of the Union address.
“There are two people who can directly influence the situation in this country: President Biden and Secretary Mayorcas. said.
Ciscomani invited Biden and Mayorkas to Cochise County, adding that it’s important to look at issues he’s familiar with growing up in the area. Thursday’s visit did not include Democrats.
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When asked about it, Ciscomani said the problem isn’t about politics, it’s about finding solutions.
“We are not talking about immigration reform here. We are talking about border security here. Those are two different issues that need to be addressed separately,” he said.
One Democrat notably absent from the event was Rep. Raul Grijalva. His House district was changed in the latest redistricting to include the Cochise County border area. This includes some of the unincorporated lands south of the Sierra Vista visited by McCarthy and the Republican congressional delegation.
Earlier in the day, Grijalva was also in Cochise County, meeting with the mayor of the border city of Douglas and touring Raul H. Castro’s port of entry.
Last year, Congress allocated $200 million in funding for the long-standing expansion of the Douglas border crossing as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. The first steps towards port modernization will begin in the coming weeks.
These actions will have a significant economic impact on the region and will also help border security by stopping more drugs like fentanyl, which are mostly smuggled through legal border crossings. , is the type of result border regions need, Grijalva said.
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He said he hoped McCarthy and other Republicans visiting the border would understand how complicated the border community was, and he said he hoped he would not be disturbed by the areas he represented in Congress for decades. He warned of the effects of rhetoric.
“As long as it’s been slandered, as long as it’s been demonized by people like the Speaker of the House and the Chair of the Judiciary Committee, that’s a message to send to the rest of America.” and sees this part of our country as a deficit and somehow outlaws the land unlike the rest of the country.It makes no difference.”
