Two members of Oklahoma’s Congressional Delegation are supporting President Trump’s efforts to get additional funding for a southern border wall with Mexico. Congressmen Markwayne Mullin and Kevin Hern issued statements shortly after the President’s Tuesday evening address.
“President Trump’s message to the American people was abundantly clear,” said Mullin. “We cannot ignore the facts any longer. There is a humanitarian and national security crisis at our country’s southern border.
“In the last three months, over 60,000 individuals traveled to our southern border. Of those, approximately 85 percent crossed our border illegally. Border security agents arrested 17,000 adults with criminal records at the border in FY18. The Department of Homeland Security kept 3,755 known or suspected terrorists out of the U.S. in FY17. In the last month, Customs and Border Protection encountered 22,000 children at the border, including 4,000 children under the age of five.
“But with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi leading the charge, Democrats have proven that they have no interest in ending the shutdown or securing our southern border. Republicans have put forward a number of good-faith, commonsense efforts to negotiate. It’s time the Democrats put aside their partisan antics and come to the table to protect the integrity of our country and its citizens.
“Just as our president said: ‘They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside but because they love the people on the inside.’ Every American inside our borders is worth protecting and I will stand with the president in his continued efforts to build the wall and secure our borders,” concluded Mullin.
“The situation at our Southern border grows worse every day. But let’s be clear – we are in this situation because Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats refuse to come to the table,” said Hern. “In 2006, the Democrats widely supported a physical barrier at the border. But now that it’s politically valuable to them, they have been obstructive at every point in the conversation.
“President Trump is doing exactly what he promised the American people, and exactly what he said he would do for the last two years – breaking the Washington status quo in the process. The Democrats are clearly surprised by a politician who can be taken at his word. The sooner that we can come together to solve the crisis at our border, the better off our country will be.”
