“Biden’s border crisis puts illegal immigrants first and puts our Veterans last.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Steve Daines today delivered remarks at the weekly Republican Senate Leadership press conference slamming the Biden administration for diverting Department of Veterans Affairs health care resources from veterans to illegal immigrants. Daines also says any supplemental bill must include border security provisions.
To watch Daines’ remarks, click HERE.
“So, to help frame this current debate on the supplemental bill, I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a misunderstanding. This is not about reaching a bipartisan compromise on immigration reform. There have been debates about that in the past, there will be debates about that in the future. That’s not what this debate is about.
“This is fundamentally a national security issue. This is about changes that need to be made to protect the homeland, to protect our southern border. And I hear it all the time when I’m back home in Montana, including this past weekend. We need to secure our southern border now. Everybody knows, and the stats show it, this border is a crisis of President Biden’s own making. It is certainly his actions that have created this mess on the southern border.
“The question now is, will Senate Democrats get serious about solving the problem that President Biden has created? The record-breaking numbers continue every day, every week. You’ve heard them. What concerns me are the number of apprehensions made of those on the FBI’s terror watch list and from countries designated as state sponsors of terror. And just when we thought we’d heard the worst of it, here’s one more story to build on why we need to solve the problem on the southern border.
“We just learned that the VA health care resources, the VA, are being used to facilitate healthcare to illegal migrants. Veterans have a hard enough time getting the care that they need and now they have to compete with illegal immigrants? This will not fix the border crisis. Biden’s border crisis puts illegal immigrants first, it puts our veterans last. You know in Montana we have the second highest per capita veteran population in the United States. This is a disservice to all those who have said sacrificed and served our country.
“We as Republicans want to solve this problem. Joe Biden and Senate Democrats need to step up, get serious, and pass border security measures. The time is now. We need policy changes. It’s about tightening asylum standards and reining in DHS’s parole powers.”