EXCLUSIVE: Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold field hearings in McAllen, Texas, next week to investigate the Biden administration’s “public health crisis” fueled by fentanyl being trafficked across the border. south.
Fox News Digital has learned that the chair, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., will host her committee members at two locations in Texas as she works to focus attention on the administration’s “open border agenda.”
A committee aide said the announcement of these hearings, as President Biden prepares to deliver his second State of the Union address Tuesday night, was timed to contrast the actual state of the nation with Biden’s assessment. . The president is expected to tout declining inflation and gas prices and his signature infrastructure bill during remarks.
“Friends, if we want to promote freedom and justice, we need to secure our border and fix the immigration system,” Biden said during last year’s national address. But McMorris Rodgers says things have gone the other way ever since.
4 MILLION BORDER ENCOUNTERS SINCE KAMALA HARRIS ASSIGNED TO ADDRESS THE ‘ROOT CAUSE’ OF THE PROBLEM
Fox News Digital has learned that Speaker Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican, will host her committee members at two locations in Texas as she works to focus attention on the Biden administration’s “open border agenda.” (Zach Gibson/Getty Images/File)
“America is less secure today because of President Joe Biden’s open borders agenda and the war on American energy,” McMorris Rodgers told Fox News Digital. “That is the state of our union. The Committee on Energy and Commerce will be in Texas next week to expose this reality.
KAMALA HARRIS TO AVOID US-MEXICO BORDER DURING ARIZONA VISIT
“In McAllen, Texas, we will host a field hearing to explain why we must secure the border, stop fentanyl and its analogues, and save lives. Then we will travel to Midland, Texas, to hear from community leaders on how you can improve the lives of people by expanding, not transitioning or shutting down, our energy production,” he said.
Border Patrol agents apprehend illegal immigrants shortly after crossing the border from Mexico into the United States on March 26, 2018, in the Rio Grande Valley sector near McAllen, Texas. (Loren Elliott/AFP via Getty Images)
The aide said the hearings will be based on an effort to pass the HALT Fentanyl Act, which the Biden administration does not support. The bill would ensure law enforcement has the tools to keep fentanyl off the streets.
House Republicans have focused on the border crisis as one of the top priorities to address in the new Congress.
The House Judiciary Committee wasted no time in its effort to pressure the Biden administration over the current border Crisis, addressing the matter at his first hearing of the 118th Congress last week.
The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday before Biden’s State of the Union to hear the situation on the ground. on the southern border, directly from the patrol leaders who deal with the crisis every day.
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A Border Patrol agent on horseback monitors the area near where the US-Mexico border fence meets the Pacific Ocean on November 7, 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
Vice President Kamala Harris announced Monday that $4.2 billion in funds from private companies will go to Central America to promote job creation, clean energy, gender equity and other goals. The ad is part of harris’ effort to boost economic growth in the region to reduce incentives to leave for the United States, but critics said the plan does nothing to address the short-term crisis at the border.
