Arkansas Congressmen describe crisis in visit to southern border

Three members of the all-Republican Arkansas congressional delegation visited the nation’s southern border Friday, observing what they portrayed as a deepening humanitarian and public health crisis.

“It’s a disaster on our border. It requires presidential attention that it’s not getting right now. This has to change. It cannot continue,” said 3rd District Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers.

There are insufficient resources available to handle the multitudes, 2nd District Rep. French Hill of Little Rock said, hours after glimpsing newcomers along the banks of the Rio Grande.

Womack and Hill were part of a congressional delegation led by House Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

As a congressman, since 2015, Hill already made six trips to the southwest border.

Things have badly deteriorated, he warned, toward the end of his seventh visit.

“The conditions here in the Rio Grande Valley were the most out of control I have witnessed,” he said.

“The Biden administration has to bear full responsibility for the scope of what America is facing here now,” he said.

In March, the number of crossings along the border reached 172,331, up from 34,460 last year and 103,731 in 2019, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.

Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said officials were “on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.”

The preliminary figures reflect that.

A temporary processing center in Donna, Texas, is severely crowded, both lawmakers said.

It’s difficult, under those conditions, to follow covid-19 protocols, they noted.

“[It’s] a facility designed to process about 250 people at a time, with about 4,000 people inside,” Womack said. “The sheer numbers, it’s overwhelming our ability to deal with it.”

While it’s still spring in Arkansas, summer-like heat is already scorching southern Texas.

In the border town of McAllen, weather station reached triple digits, Friday afternoon. Yet the stream of visitors shows no signs of slowing.

“We saw families crossing the border last night at one o’clock in the morning. [We] saw crying children this morning in the Donna facility, and it’s heartbreaking,” Hill said.

Even with temperatures rising, people are still making the journey, Womack noted.

“There’s really no end in sight,” he said. “The message, down south, is, ‘The welcome mat is out. If you want to go to America, now’s your time.’”

First District Rep. Rick Crawford of Jonesboro, who participated in another border tour Friday, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are struggling to simultaneously safeguard the frontier and process wave after wave of new arrivals.

“It’s not just the humanitarian crisis. It’s also the national security crisis,” said Crawford, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

“It’s a management nightmare across a variety of agencies,” he said.

When President Joe Biden scrapped the border policies enacted by his predecessor, Donald Trump, it triggered an increase in migration, he said.

“It was basically ringing a bell, saying, ‘Come on down’; or ‘Come on up,’ in this case,” Crawford said.

Cross-border migration ebbs and flows, but not like this, he noted.

“Every border patrol agent we talked to who had been through past surges, said this is far and away the worst they’ve ever experienced,” he said.

The increased traffic is a boon for organized crime, Hill said.

The cartels “made $400 million, in February alone, on trafficking families and persons across the border. That’s $14.5 or so million dollars a day,” Hill said.

The flow of immigrants into the country has triggered a flow of Republican politicians to southern Texas.

It’s time, Womack said, for Biden to make the trip as well.

“The president and his vice president are absolutely missing in action on a crisis that continues to unfold,” Womack said.

Members of the Arkansas House delegation Friday called on the White House to re-institute Trump-era policies including the Remain in Mexico requirement, which kept would-be asylum seekers across the border while their claims were being processed.

They also criticized Biden for halting partially completed wall and fence projects.

Mireya Reith, founding director of Arkansas United, an immigrant advocacy group, said it’s time for members of both parties on Capitol Hill to work together to find solutions.

In Arkansas, that approach has already proven beneficial, she said.

“We actually all agree this is a broken system and something should be done,” she said. “We at Arkansas United want to invite our congressmen to be the ones to step up to that leadership [role].”