October 05, 2023

RANKING MEMBER CORREA STATEMENT ON BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S BORDER WALL ANNOUNCEMENT

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Representative Lou Correa (CA-46), the top Democrat on the House Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee, released the following statement in response to an announcement from the Biden administration that it will waive 26 laws to build additional border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley:

“President Ronald Reagan once said, ‘America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.” And so, today, refugees continue to come to America seeking freedom and economic survival, just like our forefathers did. Border barriers have been used for decades including under Clinton Administration in the 1990s and have advanced under each and every President since. Clearly it hasn’t stopped refugees from seeking a way to feed their families and survive.

Instead of building a wall, let’s work on solutions that work. We should be working on short-term solutions like legal pathways to citizenship, and additional personnel to manage trade and immigration at our ports of entry, and long-term solutions like creating good-paying jobs south of the border. Instead, we have tariffs on products coming from some of our most economically depressed southern neighbors. This is not the way to create jobs for potential future refugees or stop them from fleeing their homes. 

Here at home, we have economic challenges as well, including a worker shortage. We have eleven million undocumented workers that are law-abiding taxpayers, and 50% of our farmworkers are undocumented. Yet, we cannot pass common-sense solutions in D.C. that begin to address the root causes of the refugee challenge in our hemisphere.

The refugee challenge that we see at the southern border, gridlock in Washington, and a Congress without a Speaker, are symptoms of greater challenge, a deeply divided nation and a deeply divided government. We must rise above partisan politics for the good of our nation.”

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