Jim Jordan says Biden 'INTENTIONALLY' caused southern border crisis trends now
The Judiciary Committee kicked off the new Congress on an extremely combative note with Chairman Jim Jordan opening with accusing the Biden administration of 'intentionally' causing the southern border crisis.
Democratic Ranking Member Jerry Nadler followed-up with his own opening remarks calling Republicans' focus on the southern border 'racist' and a 'distraction'.
Jordan made the panel's first hearing on the southern border crisis as the House GOP makes clear the issue is a top priority in their new majority.
After reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ohio Republican started off the hearing by listing several staggering figures, including the more than 4.5 million illegal immigrants who have crossed the southwest U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
'These numbers make clear that the Biden administration does not have operational control of the border,' Jordan said, adding that month-after-month new records are reached for migrants entering the U.S.
The hearing comes just hours before a group of House Republicans led by Arizona Representative Andy Biggs, who also participated in the hearing as a member of the Judiciary panel, plan to introduce articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan held the panel's first hearing Wednesday by focusing on the southern border and accusing the Biden administration of 'intentionally' causing the migration crisis
Combative Ranking Member Jerry Nadler accused Jordan of 'distracting' from lack of GOP headways in the new Congress and said: 'The first hearing will showcase the racist tendencies of the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the party... It almost makes me miss their usual obsession with conspiracy theories'
'I think it's intentional,' Jordan said of the crisis. 'I don't know how anyone with common sense or logic can reach any other conclusion. It seems deliberate, it seems premeditated, it seems intentional,' the Judiciary chairman added.
Nadler, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, lambasted the GOP leaders, saying that the hearing would prove 'the racist tendencies' of pro-Trump Republicans.
He also said that Republicans are only interested in 'showboating' and claimed Jordan is in a 'turf war' with Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, who is holding his own hearing on the border next week.
'I wish this committee was starting off on a different note,' Nadler lamented in his opening remarks. 'Unfortunately, this hearing is more of the same haphazard, chaotic style we have come to expect of this new Republican majority.'
'We saw them take 15 tries to elect a Speaker, we saw them fumble on the opening play by needing to reschedule their first meeting and now this,' he listed.
'Furthermore, this hearing appears to be the latest spat in an ongoing turf war between Chairman Jordan and Chairman Comer.'
Republicans in Congress equally blame Mayorkas and Biden for the southern border crisis, and have torn into the leaders for insisting that the southern border is closed and under operational control.
Vice President Kamala Harris has also received the brunt of Republican ire since she was appointed border 'czar' for the administration – but has insisted her role is only to focus on root problems in Central American countries that lead to mass migration to the U.S.
'Make no mistake about it, the Biden administration is carrying out its plan,' Jordan said, claiming that they are being successful in their efforts at the border, insisting that the influx of illegal immigration is an intentional plot by the White House.
The first Judiciary hearing makes good on GOP promises to zero-in on the southern border crisis – but Democrats say it was thrown together due to a 'turf war' with Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, who is holding his own hearing on the border next week
'We all heard Secretary Mayorkas sit in front of this committee and said, 'We are executing our plan on the border.' And we all heard President Biden say, 'We're trying to make it easier for people to get here.' Well they're certainly succeeding in that,' the chairman detailed.
'Imagine the frustration that our border communities feel when they hear that the damage done to their land and to their businesses, the crimes committed by illegal alien trespassers and the overwhelmed local resources that are all part of their own federal government's plan,' he alleged.
Democrats insisted that Biden has continued former President Donald Trump's policies at the border as a way to defend against GOP attack-lines.
The Republican side of the Judiciary panel, however, disputed this, pointing to Biden stopping construction of the border wall and ending the so-called
