John Katko

I hope that this hearing today will be an honest examination of the conditions facing these children on the ground.

I am troubled that the Biden administration has removed important protections related to vetting the sponsors to whom unaccompanied children are released.

Many children making the dangerous journey to the United States face tragic circumstances of abuse, illness, violence, and trafficking along the way.

The welfare of children crossing the Southwest Border is a topic all of us care deeply about.

The most important mission of this committee is to help protect the homeland.

The infrastructure report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers earlier this month gave the U.S. a C-minus on the clean water infrastructure.

I will reiterate my request to have you come up and see it for yourself.

It is literally a multibillion-dollar project.

I hope we can continue working together on a truly bipartisan infrastructure package in the coming months.

I just came back from a motorcycle ride, my first one of the season, and I can reaffirm to you the obvious--that our roads and bridges in this country suck, and they need a lot of work.

I really hope that you can make sure, impress upon the President, as I tried to do, and others, that--send a message that we really want a bipartisan bill.

Would it be fair to call it a crisis? Because that`s what your agents are calling it.

President Biden's knee-jerk reversal of productive, effective border security policies from the previous administration was a political calculation that has, quite frankly, backfired and created a humanitarian, security, and public health…

I will note, in response to my colleagues across the aisle, that there is nothing wrong with enforcing the immigration laws that are on the books. That is all we are talking about doing at the border, and keeping the border secure. Madam…

Not a single person was tested at that facility, and they were being--as we were there, there were people being transferred from that facility to elsewhere.

Thank you very much.

Will you commit to encouraging the President to accept Leader McCarthy's well-intentioned invitation to discuss the border crisis?

I want to talk about solving problems, and I just want to get a commitment from you on 2 things.

Can you confirm that over the weekend you directed FEMA to help receive, shelter, and transfer unaccompanied children from the Southwest Border?

Can you confirm that Homeland Security has asked for volunteers to help manage the 'overwhelming' number of migrants at the border?

I do appreciate you taking care of the agents. That is very commendable.

Wouldn't it be fair to call it a crisis? Because that is what your agents are calling it.

Can you confirm that Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 100,000 individuals in February, which was a 173 percent increase from February 2020?

When I took office on February 2, 2 percent of the front-line Border Patrol personnel had been vaccinated.

We have faced the on-going pandemic, a deadly winter storm in the South, an attack on the U.S. Capitol, fallout from cyber attacks... and a burgeoning crisis along our Southern Border.