Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy of California took a trip to our southern border. What he saw there was harrowing.

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McCarthy: On Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Congress the Biden administration has “effectively managed” the ongoing border crisis. Having just returned from my second trip to the southern border since Joe Biden became president, I can tell you that the Biden administration’s poor management and open borders policies not only caused the ongoing crisis at our border, but are now looking to make it worse.

In Eagle Pass, Texas, my Republican colleagues and I saw the harm these policies are causing to our border communities and our country.

We went to where the body of Specialist Bishop Evans was recovered earlier that morning. Spc. Evans, the brave 22-year-old Texas National Guardsman who dove into the river to save two illegal immigrants, exemplified the heroism of those who protect our borders.

We then met with a group of Eagle Pass residents who told us how the border crisis is upending their lives and businesses. One rancher who has lived on the border for more than 20 years told us he had never seen it this bad and does not feel safe on his own property. Every day, he worries about his children going outside. As he shared his story, he broke down in tears.

This is the reality of the Biden Border Crisis. These are the stories of its heartbreaking toll. Our trip laid bare the severity of this crisis. We learned that there were 259,594 border apprehensions within the Del Rio Sector in 2021 alone, more than the previous nine years combined.

And here’s another alarming thing we saw in Eagle Pass: the Biden Administration is providing illegal immigrants with free iPhones. I watched as ICE agents unlocked phones using facial recognition technology and handed them to a group of individuals who had been apprehended only moments before. This appears to be part of the Biden Administration’s “effectively managed” border accountability to track illegal immigrants: by giving them taxpayer-funded phones they can easily discard.

The Biden administration’s approach to border security is an embarrassment and threatens our nation’s security. Worse, it is this administration’s own policies that got us to where we are now. President Biden ended Remain-in-Mexico, terminated the “safe third country” agreements with Central America, and paid contractors not to build the wall. He dismantled immigration enforcement and pushed for mass amnesty.

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Now, President Biden wants to end an essential tool to turn away hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from entering the United States: Title 42. It’s hard to imagine a more dangerous policy change. If the Biden border crisis is unsustainable today, what will it look like a month from now?

It will get significantly worse, overwhelming a Border Patrol that is already stretched thin. Biden’s Department of Homeland Security is bracing for 18,000 border encounters each day once Title 42 ends, more than double the current daily average…We need to secure the border now. Biden and Mayorkas must step up and do their job, not abandon their responsibility to keep America safe.