By Office Of Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday on the Senate Floor, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) called on President Biden and Senate Democrats to include major border security policy changes in an upcoming supplemental funding bill. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 240,988 encounters at the southern border in October, bringing the total to 6.6 million border encounters since Biden took office.
“We have a humanitarian and national security crisis at our southern border,” Ricketts said. “Total, we've seen 172 people on the terrorist watch list try to enter our country in the last year, 169 at the southern border. And to put that in perspective, that number used to be in the single digits every year. Last month it was 12. We're encountering more people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list in one month than we used to get an entire year. Border security is national security.”
“The policy is what's caused this. We have to change the policy…” Ricketts said. “We see that we have an asylum system and a parole system that is broken. We need to address that. And then we must have a first safe country policy. You may say, ‘what's a first safe country?’ What this policy says is you stop in the first safe country and you apply for asylum in the United States from there, not within our own country… In fact, not only does our northern neighbor have this policy, but 29 other countries have this policy that you have to remain in the first safe country.
“What does that mean? That if you're coming to our southern border, you must remain in Mexico. And that is part of the policy changes that we need to have. We must bring back Remain in Mexico.”
“President Biden has direct responsibility for the humanitarian crisis on our southern border,” Ricketts concluded. “Children are being trafficked, people are dying, and the cartels are profiting off of all this. He is responsible. If he's not going to act, we in the Senate must act. My Republican colleagues and I have put forward common-sense solutions on how to address the issues at our southern border. We must have these policy changes if we are going to pass any sort of supplemental that is going to include additional funding for anything else. The number one issue we have here is addressing this humanitarian and national security crisis.
“That is the priority for the American people. It is a priority for my Republican colleagues and my Senate Democrat colleagues must make that their priority as well.”
Border security has long been a top priority for Ricketts. He introduced the Ensure Uniform Border Inspection Practices Act to require annual comprehensive reviews of CBP policies to improve enforcement practices. He also supports 10 additional pieces of legislation that address the illegal immigration crisis at the border and improve enforcement of existing laws.
Watch the video HERE.