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Opinion

Texas senator, congressmen to Biden and Harris: Y’all come visit and learn about the border

Our bipartisan bill addresses the humanitarian crisis at the border.

Seven years ago, then-Vice President Joe Biden was dispatched by President Barack Obama to Central America to try and stem the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.

Nearly 480,000 migrants crossed the border in fiscal year 2014, including more than 68,500 unaccompanied children. In fiscal year 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered nearly 970,000 migrants at our southern border, including 80,000 unaccompanied children.

This year, we will surpass those totals before the summer is over. In the last eight months, nearly 930,000 migrants have illegally entered the United States, including almost 80,000 unaccompanied children. We are on track to see the highest number of total yearly border crossings in two decades.

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The momentum for this crisis has been building for months, but no significant action has been taken to address it. The president and vice president have yet to even visit the border.

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When asked why, Vice President Kamala Harris said she is interested in doing work that leads to real results as opposed to “grand gestures.” We agree, which is why we’ve spent significant time meeting with officials in Texas who are on the front lines of this humanitarian crisis.

We’ve seen the ways our immigration system is abused by cartels and criminal organizations. We’ve heard the stories of migrants who paid thousands of dollars to make it to the United States, only to be abused along the way. And we’ve felt the frustration of law enforcement, nongovernmental organizations, and community leaders who are expected to make up for the failures of the federal government. Sitting down with these men and women isn’t a gesture — it’s the critical first step to change.

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We have been proud to work on a bipartisan bill with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, that turns the feedback of these experts into commonsense legislation with broad support. Earlier this month, the four of us visited the Rio Grande Valley to meet with law enforcement and community leaders to continue to get their input and discuss our bill, the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act.

This legislation is tailored to address the most urgent problems on the border. It will establish at least four regional centers to streamline the processing of migrants. It will provide protections for migrant children who are brought to this country without their parents. It will help reduce the immigration court backlog and remove a major pull factor for migrants who do not have legitimate asylum claims, and it will speed up the process for the most vulnerable migrants who do.

Once processed, nearly 85% of claims are denied for not qualifying as asylum under international regulations. This bill provides the resources for migrants to receive their day in court upon arrival and remove the strain on federal agencies as they work through the backlog of cases.

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These commonsense reforms have the support of members from both parties and both chambers in Congress, as well as a diverse range of organizations. The National Border Patrol Council, National Immigration Forum, and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce are among the nearly 20 highly respected organizations to support this bill.

While unaccompanied children have become the face of this crisis — and for good reason — we cannot ignore the larger challenges on the horizon. The administration is weighing whether this is the appropriate time to lift Title 42, an order first enacted in 1981 that requires the majority of migrants to be turned away due to public health risks (in this case, COVID-19).

In May, more than 110,000 migrants were returned under Title 42. If not for this authority, those men and women would be processed in the already overcrowded and understaffed Border Patrol facilities.

Without a transition plan, the administration will invite a complete and immediate overload of the system. Border Patrol agents are already spread thin. They lack the facilities and resources to fairly and humanely process the current influx of migrants, let alone many tens of thousands more every month. As the administration considers the best path forward, there has never been a more important time to hear from the men and women who live and work in border communities and have for decades.

Our message to President Biden and Vice President Harris is: Come to Texas. Visit the border. Listen to locals. Take a look at our bipartisan bill. And let’s address this humanitarian crisis together.

John Cornyn is a Republican U.S. senator from Texas.

Henry Cuellar is a Democrat representing Laredo in the U.S. House.

Tony Gonzales is a Republican representing San Antonio in the U.S. House.

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They wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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