(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) After watching the Biden administration’s open border policies lead to a record-high invasion of illegal immigrants, a flood of smuggled fentanyl and skyrocketing crime and deadly violence, every Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee has opted to skip a critical hearing in the field slated for Wednesday at the border in Texas.
Despite several Democrats having reportedly agreed to participate in the field hearing, even inviting their own witness, those same Democrats claimed Monday that they weren’t “pulling out” of the hearing, “because they never agreed to attend in the first place,” reported Fox News correspondent Aishah Hasnie.
The field hearing, which had been planned since last month, will include testimony from U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz and is geared toward investigating a direct link between the disastrous border crisis and Biden’s policies.
House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., blustered that any attempt to show the chaos at the border was little but GOP grandstanding.
“Unfortunately, it has become clear that Republicans planned to politicize this event from the start,” Thompson wrongly claimed. “Instead of a fact-finding mission to develop better border security and immigration policies, Republicans are traveling to the border to attack the Administration and try to score political points with their extreme rhetoric.”
The intent of the hearing, and traveling to Texas to hold it, was specifically to address border security and find solutions for failing immigration policies, said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Green, R-N.C.
The hearing took on added urgency after a swarm of illegal aliens this weekend rushed a border checkpoint in El Paso, Texas, “pushing down permanent barriers and overwhelming armed border officials who struggled to hold back the crowd as they attempted to cross the bridge to the United States,” reported Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin.
BREAKING: Our contact in Juarez, MX tells us a massive group of at least 1,000 migrants just attempted to rush a port of entry in El Paso in an effort to get into the United States. Video shows them pushing past the Mexican side of Paso Del Norte bridge. Awaiting CBP comment. pic.twitter.com/lxriIB3TSm
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 12, 2023
NEW: This is the bilateral show of force that dispersed the huge group of migrants trying to rush a port of entry in El Paso today. Two lines of Mexican military, then on the US side, physical barriers, barbed wire, and a skirmish line of CBP officers in crowd control gear. pic.twitter.com/YPaNBUhQhu
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 13, 2023
“It’s deeply disappointing that the Minority members of the Committee have chosen to bail on this week’s full committee field hearing in Texas,” wrote Green, who said that Democrats offered no reasons for skipping the hearing.
“The only message their absence sends is that they are uninterested in coming to the table to have a conversation about the devastation that this border crisis is having on Americans and their communities across the country,” Green wrote. “We will continue to encourage our Democrat colleagues to get out of the DC echo chamber and meet Americans where they are to discuss the biggest issues facing them.”
