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Immigration and the Southern Border

America is a land of immigrants, but our current immigration system is broken. In the last three years there have been over seven and a half million illegal migrant encounters nationwide—six million at the southern border alone—in addition to the nearly two million known “getaways.” There have been almost 300 individuals whose names appear on the terrorist watch list encountered at the border—and those are just the ones we know about. Federal officials estimate they are only able capture five to ten percent of the fentanyl crossing from Mexico, but in fiscal year 2023 alone, agents seized enough to kill around six billion people.

I am fighting to fix this broken system and restore security at our southern border. As a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, I proudly supported H.R. 2, the Securing the Border Act of 2023 that included critical asylum and detention reforms. I also advocated to keep Title 42 in place and am fighting to restart construction of the southern border wall, because a country without borders isn’t a country at all.

I also remain steadfast in my commitment to ensure a stable, reliable, and legal agriculture workforce. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act protects our communities, strengthens our national security, and secure our southern border, while recognizing that our legal immigrants contribute heavily to our local economies, producers, and small businesses. We must work together on a solution that encourages respect for the rule of law and ensures those who are contributing to our region and have no criminal record are legally able to work.