Ted Yoho: “After the conclusion of the last shutdown, I was hopeful that we would work together in good faith to find a commonsense…”

“After the conclusion of the last shutdown, I was hopeful that we would work together in good faith to find a commonsense approach to secure our border. However, it appears that the Democrats are more concerned with releasing illegal aliens than addressing border security. Recently, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have suggested that we reduce the adult detention beds for illegal detainees in exchange for border security. This is unacceptable. As we in this body are all aware, adult detention beds are an essential aspect of enforcing our immigration laws. Reducing the amount of beds would further exacerbate our problems with interior enforcement, thus relying on an ineffective catch and release policy. Only 4 percent of those released ever show up for their court date. That means that they have a 96 percent chance of staying in this country. Our primary role of government is security. Border security is national security, and our national security should not be a bargaining chip for the Democrats' political games. I urge my colleagues across the aisle to take this issue seriously. Please stop playing political games with our Nation's security and the brave men and women of our Coast Guard, TSA, CBP, and ICE agents. We must work together as Americans and fix our broken immigration system which starts with a secure border. ____________________”