Opinion: Biden’s border nightmare

By Joni Ernst

Biden’s border is a nightmare, but Senate Democrats refuse to wake up and address the crisis.

Hardly a day goes by without hearing of another American who has fallen victim to crimes perpetrated by the illegal immigrants that Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has enticed to our southern border and paroled into our country.

Women in our big cities and small towns are thinking twice before going out into their communities, remembering Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student who was beaten to death by an illegal after a run on her college campus.

While our citizens are sleeping with one eye open, Democrat leaders in the U.S. Senate are turning a blind eye to their own failed border policies.

Last week, they trashed 227 years of precedent by refusing to hold an impeachment trial for Secretary Mayorkas, who was accused of and impeached for derelictions of duty, including “enticing an increasing number of aliens to make the dangerous journey to our southwest border.”

In every previous congressional impeachment, the Senate has been faithful to the trial process set out by our framers. Never before has the Senate abandoned this duty.

How many young Americans must die, and how many families must be ripped apart for Senate Democrats to do their Constitutional duty to uphold the law?

It’s time to wake up and face reality – Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is asleep at the wheel, and his failures have resulted in 7.5 million encounters since President Biden took office. Encounters in Fiscal Year 2023 increased a startling 440% over Fiscal Year 2020.

Meanwhile, police officers are being assaulted in our streets. Violent gang members and criminals are getting ferried to our cities on the government dime, where they amass stores of weapons and commit murder and mass robberies. More and more terrorists and Chinese nationals are showing up on our shores each year.

This could have all been avoided. For more than eight years, I have warned against the dangers of letting violent illegal immigrants – who have already broken our laws – roam the country and continue their lawlessness.

I have repeatedly called on the Senate to protect innocent Americans from criminals who are in our country illegally and pass my bill – Sarah’s Law, named in honor of Sarah Root, a 21-year-old Iowan murdered on the eve of her college graduation.

But Senate Democrats blocked my recent effort to pass this bill, showing once again that they do not take border security seriously.

Sarah and Laken’s deaths—and all the other Americans who should be alive today if Secretary Mayorkas had not enticed criminals to cross our border—are tragic and, unfortunately, are doomed to be repeated under President Biden.

If the American dream is to be extended to our children and grandchildren, we cannot simply give up on securing our border. Only safe communities can thrive.

I’ll continue fighting to protect our homeland and hold this administration accountable.

Joni Ernst, a native of Red Oak and a combat veteran, represents Iowa in the United States Senate.