Georgia Governor Brian Kemp joined 24 of his peers Tuesday in sending a letter to President Joe Biden calling on his administration to immediately relay accurate, detailed, and thorough data to the states about who is crossing the Southern border illegally, where they are relocating, how the federal government is processing their asylum applications, and whether they are being deported.
In the letter, the Republican Governors are asking for the information immediately, but also regularly as the crisis at the southern border continues.
They write, “The crisis at the southern border extends to every state. As a result of your policies which incentivize illegal immigration, our states are carrying the burden of both the years-long surge in illegal border crossings and cartels’ coordinated trafficking of drugs and human beings. States are on the front lines, working around-the-clock responding to the effects of this crisis: shelters are full, food pantries empty, law enforcement strained, and aid workers exhausted.”
According to the information in the letter, there have been over 5.8 million illegal crossings at the southern border since Biden took office. It goes on to point out that Biden’s Customs and Border Protection agency estimates 1.6 million crossers have evaded apprehension. “Even illegal crossings at the northern border have increased exponentially under your administration, in some areas by nearly 850 percent.” They added that in the past two years, 244 people on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the southern border—an all-time record.
“Your administration can no longer ignore simple facts that threaten our citizens’ public safety and strain their public resources,” the letter says.
According to the information in the letter, analysts estimate the annual net cost of illegal immigration for the United States at the federal, state, and local levels is at least $150.7 billion. “States are forced to provide financial, educational, and medical support to migrants entering our country illegally – support that is skyrocketing in cost due to record inflation and the unprecedented influx of migrants into our states. The financial impact on the states is staggering, and it is our hardworking citizens who shoulder that burden.”
They point out that this is not a partisan issue but is a national problem.
“As we have made clear repeatedly, every state is now a border state.”
