Senate Democrat says most of GOP ‘delights at chaos at the border’

Sen. Chris Murphy accused Republicans on Sunday of rooting for the southern border to be overrun by migrants for political acquire as the top of the COVID-area coverage often called Title 42 is predicted to immediate extra unlawful crossings.

Title 42, which allowed the U.S. to show migrants away on the U.S.-Mexico border with out making use of for asylum within the identify of public well being, ended late Thursday with the expiration of the official pandemic well being emergency.

“Republicans have had multiple opportunities to come to the table and pass immigration reform that would fix the problem at the border,” Mr. Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, mentioned on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And my belief is that while you have a small group of Republicans who legitimately want to engage, the majority of that party delights at chaos at the border.”

The Biden administration is reimplementing a previous immigration coverage with stricter authorized penalties in a bid to stem the move of migrants overwhelming southern border communities.

However, it’s didn’t ease the fierce criticism from Republicans of the president’s insurance policies.

House Republicans handed a border safety invoice final week simply earlier than Title 42 expired that Senate Democrats say is useless on arrival, whereas a bipartisan invoice to increase Title 42 for 2 years is being led by Sens. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, and Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona impartial.

Mr. Murphy prompt that Republicans don’t have any intentions of discovering an answer that might muster sufficient assist to change into legislation and that might handle different immigration insurance policies apart from stopping unlawful crossings, equivalent to modifications to the asylum course of and protections for many who had been dropped at the U.S. illegally as kids.

“You saw some of my colleagues on Tuesday as soon as votes were done, rushed down to the border to take smiling photographs with the border patrol, essentially celebrating the fact that there was chaos because they believe that there’s political gain to be had,” Mr. Murphy mentioned. “I think Americans know that it’s Republicans, not Democrats, that have been sitting next to fixing our broken immigration system.”