Rep. Scalise: 'The First Thing You Have to Do Is Secure the Border'

(CNSNews.com) – At a Republican news conference on Wednesday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was asked if Republicans would support increasing in the number of H-2B visas for Mexican and Central American workers — something President Biden endorsed on Tuesday.

“You know, one thing we’ve said is the first thing you have to do is secure the border,” Scalise said:

“There’s been a lot of attempts over decades to try to deal with interior border problems, interior immigration problems. You can’t really start that conversation until you first secure America’s border. And Joe Biden walked into office with a secure border.

“We had that agreement with Mexico. Remain in Mexico was a heavily negotiated agreement between President Trump and the President of Mexico. And Joe Biden jettisoned it day one. He also jettisoned the Northern Triangle Agreements. He stopped building the wall, which was being effective at keeping people out that are trying to get here illegally so we can get back to a legally working system.

“And let’s keep in mind this — America has the most generous immigration laws in the world. We let over a million people into our country legally every year. The number two nation in the world is not even close to us.

“Yet, right now, you’ve got millions of people that have come across illegally. So many people that came to this country legally, that followed the rules to live the American dream, are offended by the idea that millions of people just come across illegally — enriching, by the way, the drug cartels, the coyotes, billions of dollars of money is going to these drug cartels because Joe Biden created this open border by abandoning the things that were working.

“So I hope he gets back to what will work. Again, we will be rolling out an agenda later in the summer to show the country how we’ll address all of these problems and what we would do if we won a House Republican majority next year.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made it clear last month that amnesty is not part of the Republican plan:

“Amnesty is a nonstarter,” McCarthy tweeted on June 22. “It won’t be taken up by a House Republican majority. Our border crisis is the worst in history and the only immigration plan should be to secure the border and stop illegal immigration that’s fueling the worst drug crisis in history.”

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