On Wednesday, the House committee on homeland security held a predictably tense hearing on supposed misconduct by the authorities in the U.S. in charge of immigration issues. The panel’s participating members included Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who specifically tried — besides her own border rhetoric — to defend the legitimacy of GOP witness Chad Wolf’s time leading the Department of Homeland Security, though it had been ruled against in court.
She can’t escape the truth, though, and neither can the other Republicans. “So you have someone who’s acting unlawfully and somebody who skips a Congressional subpoena, and we’re going to be lectured by the majority about a dereliction of duty of the current, lawfully serving, Senate-confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) observed, referring to Wolf.
Swalwell subsequently asked an expert witness who was evidently there on Democrats’ behalf about whether she thought supporting the countries from which migrants were coming would significantly reduce the number of people trying to make it to the United States at all. This idea is not something you hear often if at all from prominent Republicans, who instead seem to generally focus on border blockades. Swalwell was speaking with Eleanor Acer of the organization Human Rights First, and she replied generally in the affirmative.
Critically, Swalwell also asked Acer for her perspective on the impact from the objectively false Republican claims that the southern border is “open.” “I don’t know how much migrants actually listen to these hearings,” she said. “But you’re right in that I’ve heard Mexican officials say they wished that U.S. politicians would actually stop saying that the border was open, because they thought that was really sending the wrong message, and sometimes, disinformation and inaccurate information does get into Facebook groups that many migrants do follow.”
“It needs solutions, not theater,” Swalwell added as he closed. Greene’s commentary provided that theater, as she seemed to generally misrepresent the status of 85,000 migrant children identified as essentially missing. Observers might think otherwise hearing her tell it, but what seems to be the case is that authorities lost contact with these minors after they were placed with sponsors. They weren’t just missing as though they just up and disappeared one day. It’s difficult to deal with the serious issue of keeping those contacts open when Greene and others insist on “theater.” Check out relevant hearing portions below:
Rep. Swalwell (D-CA) asks if GOP saying border is open makes migrants more likely to cross into the U.S.
Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer: “Mexican officials say they wished U.S. politicians would actually stop … because they thought that was really sending the wrong message.” pic.twitter.com/7sZufRRKKx
— The Recount (@therecount) June 14, 2023
