Arrington, Babin to lead, invite VP on border trip

Congressmen Jodey Arrington (TX-19) and Brian Babin (TX-36) announced on Friday they would lead a Texas Congressional Delegation trip to the southern border to assess the situation there next week. Both US representatives also invited Vice President Kamala Harris to join the trip.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday appointed Harris to lead efforts to restrict migration at the border.

Eleven more US representatives will be joining Arrington and Babin as delegation members on Tuesday’s trip. National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd, former US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Tom Homan and former US Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan will be joining the members.

The delegation will meet with local law enforcement, health care providers, small business owners and landowners. The members will “visit with US Customs and Border Patrol officials, the Maritime Boundary Line off the coast of Corpus Christi, the McAllen Drug Enforcement Administration district office, visit the border wall, the Port of Entry at Laredo, and the Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility,” said a press release issued by Arrington’s office.

In the news release announcing his and Babin’s letter inviting Harris to join the trip, Arrington said, “Americans need to know their leaders care and are engaged in the most pressing issues facing our nation – I can’t think of a better way for the Vice President to do that than by joining us at ground zero of our border crisis.”

He added, “I promise you this: if he sees the disaster and chaos with her own two eyes and listens first-hard to the citizens living along the border, it will change her perspective and, hopefully, their policies.”

The letter can be read here.

Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) have already led a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) with 17 of their Senate colleagues to see the border situation firsthand – in Mission, Texas.

“Border Patrol agents and Texas DPS [Department of Public Safety] officers that’ll be out on the boats, they have cartel members who will throw rocks at them, they have cartel members who will shoot at them-and that’s a regular occurrence in terms of the dangerous environment these border patrol agents are operating in,” said Cruz in a release issued by his office. “When they do intercept people, they just see them released, and they repeat the cycle over and over again. It’s incredibly frustrating and demoralizing to these heroes who are working so hard to keep our country safe.”