Earlier this week, a caravan of Central American immigrants tried to storm the United States border after making their way across Mexico. The point all along was to demand asylum from the United States or simply try to cross the border illegally. They know our laws well enough to exploit the loopholes to gain entry.
President Trump responded to caravan members rushing one of the busiest border crossings by threatening to close the border permanently. In fact, one of our border crossings was closed for a while after our Border Patrol Agents were reportedly hit by rocks thrown by caravan members. Sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures.
Missouri Congressman Sam Graves
As long as we don’t have a wall on the border and our immigration laws aren’t fixed, immigrants will continue to try to find ways to get across the border illegally and stay here. We are encouraging folks to break the law. It’s not sustainable.
Certainly, these Central American countries have problems and I understand that our country offers a better life. However, that isn’t what this is about. If we are to maintain the sovereignty of our nation, we cannot just allow countless folks from other countries to enter our country without going through the legal process that we have in place.
Because of the catch and release loopholes we currently have in place, more than 94,000 Central Americans were apprehended and released into the country last year. Many of them remain in the country today! This is de facto amnesty and it only makes our illegal immigration problem that much worse.
Allowing these catch and release loopholes to remain in place is just another step towards open borders. It should come as no surprise that Nancy Pelosi and her friends are just itching to make these ridiculous loopholes even more generous when she gets power in January. This simply cannot happen and I will join my colleagues in blocking any attempt to loosen our immigration laws. Our immigration laws must strengthen the legal immigration process, not aid lawbreakers.
In the meantime, I’ve got a simple solution. You may have heard of it. It’s known as “the WALL.”
We need to build it right now. No more games, no more dragging our feet – let’s get it built. And while we’re building it, we need to fix the loopholes that force us to spend resources on catching illegals just so we can turn them loose, instead of sending them back to their country.
In North Missouri, illegal still means illegal and I will continue fighting to make sure our broken immigration laws are fixed.
Sincerely,
Sam Graves
