Ricketts on Border Executive Order: “Biden Isn’t Addressing the Crisis. He’s Maintaining a Catastrophe”

June 4, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) slammed President Biden’s inadequate, election-year executive order on the border crisis at a press conference alongside his Senate Republican colleagues.

“President Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said 1,000 people trying to cross the border in a single day was a crisis. This executive order is going to be 2.5 times that,” Ricketts said at the press conference. “President Biden isn’t addressing the crisis. He’s maintaining a catastrophe.”

“This president is not serious. He has opened our southern border, and now, because it’s an election year, he is trying to show the American people that he’s taking steps. But we’re not going to believe it,” Ricketts continued. “If he were serious, he would implement the Trump-era policies that so successfully brought the numbers of illegal crossing at our border down.”

TRANSCRIPT

Senator Pete Ricketts: “It has been nearly three years since President Biden put Vice President Harris in charge of addressing the open southern border that we have. Now we have this executive order that President Biden wants us to believe is going to fix this. It just shows how unserious he is about addressing and securing our southern border.

“President Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said 1,000 people trying to cross the border in a single day was a crisis. This executive order is going to be 2.5 times that. President Biden isn’t addressing the crisis. He’s maintaining a catastrophe.

“Since he’s been in office, he has allowed all the Trump-era policies that worked so successfully to either go away, not enforced, or he’s repealed them. In his first hundred days in office, he issued 94 executive orders. President Trump built 500 miles of wall. President Biden stopped that with his executive order. He stopped deportations. President Trump was doing internal immigration enforcement and going after sanctuary cities. President Biden signed an executive order repealing that. He ended the Remain in Mexico policy.

“What do we get when President Biden undoes all President Trump’s policies that worked so effectively – that brought illegal border crossings down to a 40-year low? Well, we get nearly 10 million people who’ve tried to enter our country illegally. We’ve seen a humanitarian crisis, a drug trafficking crisis, sex trafficking, child trafficking, a national security crisis. Last year, 172 people on the FBI terrorist watch list tried to cross into our country. Those are just the ones we caught. Under President Trump’s four years that number was 14.

“This president is not serious. He has opened our southern border, and now, because it’s an election year, he is trying to show the American people that he’s taking steps. But we’re not going to believe it. If he were serious, he would implement the Trump-era policies that so successfully brought the numbers of illegal crossing at our border down. He is not serious.

“I am proud to stand with my Republican colleagues, to call on the president, to get serious about securing our southern border and protect the American people because he is failing. He is endangering our country. The American people will not be fooled by this political ploy.”