Lankford Joins Effort to Bolster Border Security

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Tim Scott (R-SC), along with Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Steve Daines (R-MT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Mike Rounds (R-SD) introduced the Securing Our Border Act, which redirects $15 billion of funding passed by Democrats to hire 87,000 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents and utilizes it to bolster security measures along our southern border.

“Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars and raising consumer prices on the Green New Deal or super-sizing the IRS, we need to fix the crisis at our border. Border Patrol and US Customs and Border Protection are already struggling to manage. With Title 42 expiring soon, this bill will provide the much-needed resources to address the expected flood of cartels and traffickers looking to exploit America’s weak border,” said Lankford.

“We have a crisis on our southern border. Rather than putting resources in place to address this major national security and humanitarian catastrophe, the Biden administration and congressional Democrats chose instead to spend $45 billion of taxpayer money to hire an army of IRS agents to audit the middle class,” said Scott. “While President Biden continues to drop the ball, I’m introducing legislation to fund border infrastructure and give our Border Patrol agents the tools they need to help stop the unaddressed flows of illicit goods and persons into this country. Americans need more border agents keeping them safe – not thousands more IRS agents looking over their shoulder.”

“We still have a crisis at the border, and the Biden administration has refused to take it seriously for over two years,” said Cassidy. ”Congress should not have to twist President Biden’s arm into caring about the fentanyl and other drugs pouring across the border, but we will.”

“Since President Biden stopped enforcement at the southern border there have been more than 5 million illegal border crossings, the most in US history. Yet, instead of addressing this crisis, Biden and the Democrats are spending billions of dollars on more IRS agents. The last thing Montanans want or need is an army of IRS agents coming after them. These taxpayer dollars need to be redirected to address a real crisis like our open border, not weaponized against hardworking Montanans,” said Daines. 

“The Biden administration would rather spend millions to go after hardworking Americans’ tax dollars than stop the flow of more than five million illegal immigrants and deadly fentanyl into this country. It’s long past time we force the Biden administration to put the safety and security of the American people first,” said Ernst. 

“The Biden administration continues to ignore the crisis at the border, causing deadly fentanyl to infiltrate communities throughout Wyoming. Instead of targeting the hardworking people of Wyoming with an overzealous, weaponized IRS, this administration should be addressing real problems and that starts with the border. I am proud to introduce this legislation with Senator Tim Scott that would make our communities safer and prevent unnecessary audits on the hardworking middle class,” said Lummis.

“President Biden’s priorities are out of whack,” said Rounds. ”More than five million illegal immigrants have entered the country through our southern border during his presidency. Instead of finding solutions to this national security threat, the Biden administration has hired 87,000 new IRS agents who will conduct an additional 1.2 million audits per year. The majority of these audits will be on hardworking Americans making less than $75,000 per year. Our priority should be solving an out-of-control problem at the southern border, not creating a new one with the IRS. Combatting drug and human trafficking is more important than monitoring the finances of law-abiding Americans. This commonsense legislation would redirect taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars to keep American communities safe and help eliminate the ongoing border crisis.”

The Securing Our Border Act:

• Funds nonintrusive border inspections to better equip our law enforcement’s capability to track drugs and other illicit contraband before it enters the United States;
• Funds border wall construction and other technologies to bolster tracking and enforcement efforts along the southwestern border;
• Provides retention bonuses for Border Patrol agents to help mitigate morale issues; and
• Ends the “Catch and Release” policy established by the Biden administration.

The National Border Patrol Council, which represents approximately 18,000 Border Patrol agents, endorses this legislation.

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