While Republicans in the House and Senate squabble over the border — whether they are failing to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or trying to deny President Joe Biden a victory on a bipartisan bill in accordance with former President Donald Trump’s requests — at least one House Republican from a border state says “reasonable people can actually make a good bill here. That’s what the House should be doing.”
Does Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) realize he’s talking about the House of Representatives?
Crenshaw spoke to reporters on Tuesday night and told them that one of their most popular claims, that the president can simply shut down the border without the need for a new law, was not actually within the president’s power — not even Trump’s:
I understand some Republicans are saying “We don’t need any changes to the law!” Then why did we write HR 2? Why did we do that? Why didn’t Trump just shut down the border if you just think we don’t need any changes to the law? He couldn’t. He had to make a deal with Mexico. And he did a great job doing that, but he had to rely on, literally, international agreements to get it under control.We do need changes to the law. You gotta change those loopholes in asylum. You got to raise the bar for
asylum. You’ve got to make it very clear that there’s no paroling. You need to institute, “remain in Mexico” as an authority in law. You know, these are really simple fixes that need to be done. And, you know, that emergency authority that everybody interpreted, I think is entries, you know, clean that up. You need to make that clear that that’s not entries, it’s encounters. Probably I would decrease that number vastly too. I think 5,000 is way beyond an emergency per day. You know, I think it should be closer to 1,000. But like, you know, reasonable people can actually make a good bill here. That’s what the House should be doing.
The stinger came when a reporter asked Crenshaw: “Do you have high hopes for that?”
Crenshaw: No. [LAUGHS]Reporter: Why not?Crenshaw: But, but I’m still going to try. I’m still going to try.
Watch the video above via C-SPAN.