Utah Valley Times

WASHINGTON—Today, following reports on a Border Patrol memo exposing President Biden’s executive action on the border as political theater, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) joined seven of his colleagues, led by Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), in sending a letter to President Biden. The letter criticized the perceived devastating effects of Biden's border policies. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and James Lankford (R-OK) also signed the letter.

The letter reads:

"Dear President Biden:

Just days after you announced executive action that purports to crack down on illegal immigration, it appears that your administration is still intent on continuing to disregard and undermine not only established immigration law but also your own executive order. The intent here is clear: the executive order was nothing more than an election-year gimmick designed to change the narrative around the border crisis you created, while this new U.S. Border Patrol memo maintains your status quo of purposeful action to create a wide-open border and encourage historic illegal immigration.

Reports of the recently uncovered internal Border Patrol memo indicate your administration, contrary to closing the border and swiftly removing unlawful border crossers, is instructing agents at the San Diego sector 'to release single adults from all but six countries in the Eastern Hemisphere and classify those illegal aliens as ‘hard’ or ‘very hard’ to remove' in order to allow them to remain in our country. To be clear, of the more than 100 countries in the Eastern Hemisphere, your administration’s internal memo encourages immigrants from all but six to continue to violate our immigration laws and exploit our southern border since they are effectively assured their unlawful entry will not result in their removal from our country.

Since you took office, Americans’ lives are at risk with criminals, terrorists and drugs coming across the southern border. Your own FBI Director admitted that your policies are making our nation less safe. Your administration’s open-borders policies have incentivized more than 10 million aliens to unlawfully enter the U.S. from all around the world, including criminals, gang members and suspected terrorists. Recently, eight individuals with links to ISIS who illegally entered the country via the southern border were arrested. Additionally, there were 884 children between 14-18 years old who died from fentanyl in the U.S. in 2021, and there are 70,000 fentanyl deaths in the U.S. every year. In every one of our states, families are feeling the impact of your administration’s lawless border policies every single day, which we firmly believe are responsible for this horrible crisis of criminals, terrorists and drugs coming into our country.

It is obvious this executive order was simply performative and politically motivated. The American people see right through your tactics and deserve a president who prioritizes their security."