{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-demands-vp-harris-own-up-for-failures-as-border-czar", "Grassley Demands VP Harris Own Up for Failures as Border Czar", "2024-10-15", "2024", "2024-10", "Republican", "Senate", "IA", "Chuck Grassley", "G000386", "www.grassley.senate.gov", "grassley", "https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases", "scraper", "BUTLER COUNTY, IOWA \u2013 U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote Vice President Kamala Harris asking questions about the policy decisions she has made in her role overseeing border issues for the Biden administration, as well as the dangerous consequences and crimes that have ensued as a result.\n\n\u201cEvery community is a border community because the Biden-Harris administration has refused to enforce our immigration laws,\u201d Grassley today said of his letter. \u201cThe federal government\u2019s number one job is to keep its citizens safe. By reversing the effective border security policies of the Trump administration, the Biden-Harris administration has done the very opposite of protecting American citizens.\u201d\n\nGrassley on a radio call this morning cited the following actions, among others, the Biden-Harris administration has taken that have weakened U.S. national security and made innocent Americans targets of otherwise preventable crimes:\n\nOrdering the Defense Department to stop building the southern border wall;\n\nBlocking $2 billion previously allocated for barrier construction; and\n\nEnding the Trump-era \u201cRemain in Mexico\u201d program.\n\nClick HERE for audio of Grassley discussing his letter to Vice President Harris. The full letter is available HERE and below.\n\nVice President Kamala D. Harris\n\nThe White House\n\nOffice of the Vice President\n\n1600 Pennsylvania Avenue\n\nWashington, D.C. 20500\n\nDear Vice President Harris:\n\nIn one of your first official public appearances, you joined President Biden in the Oval Office when he opined on the Trump administration\u2019s immigration and border policies. President Biden dismissed the previous administration\u2019s policies as \u201ccounterproductive to our security,\u201d \u201charmful,\u201d and a \u201cmoral and national shame.\u201d\n\nSince your first day in office, you and President Biden have worked to dismantle the Trump-era border policies and halted further construction of the border wall. The presidential proclamation terminating construction read, in part: \u201cIt shall be the policy of my Administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall.\u201d This initiated a so-called \u201ccareful review of all resources appropriated or redirected to construct a southern border wall.\u201d By April 2021, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced the cancellation of border barrier projects. In June of the same year, the Biden-Harris administration returned $2 billion to the DOD previously allocated for the purpose of border wall construction. Your administration also initiated a review of the Remain in Mexico policy, which Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Mayorkas subsequently ended in June 2021.\n\nMeanwhile, every fiscal year throughout your engagements, crossings from Mexico and the\n\nNorthern Triangle markedly exceeded any year of the Trump administration. Despite the stark increase from those nations and many others, deportations and returns overall have decreased as a share of crossings.\n\nNow, you are engaging in a numbers racket, telling Americans modest decreases in encounters from soaring, record highs is somehow proof that what your administration has been doing all along is working. It is not.\n\nPresident Biden\u2019s executive order\u2014more than three years after your administration\u2019s reckless reversal of key policies\u2014is an implicit admission that he and you bear ultimate responsibility for this crisis and this disastrous approach. As a result of these slow-walked changes, our national security has been undermined and the safety of our communities has been threatened all across the country.\n\nDue to the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s failure to achieve adequate border security, illegal immigrants, including those entering from Mexico and the Northern Triangle, have been able to perpetrate heinous acts against innocent American citizens. For example:\n\nOn May 14, 2024, an 18-year-old Honduran national, who purportedly entered the United States illegally in April 2022, pled guilty to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Waterloo, Iowa.\n\nOn April 2, 2024, a Honduran national, who was previously convicted of sexual assaulting a woman in Connecticut and deported, was charged for failing to register as a sex offender. He was reportedly able to re-enter the United States undetected by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and subsequently was arrested twice before being charged.\n\nOn February 25, 2024, a 19-year-old Honduran national was arrested for the alleged rape and aggravated assault of a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint in Louisiana. He entered the United States illegally in October 2023.\n\nOn May 4, 2024, a Guatemalan national was arrested for allegedly kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in a van in Palm Beach County, Florida. He reportedly entered the United States illegally in January 2024, was given an immigration hearing date in 2027, and was released by DHS.\n\nOn June 26, 2024, a Guatemalan national was charged with alleged sexually battery of a 14-year-old girl in Okaloosa County, Florida. He was deported on February 9, 2024, before this incident, but was able to re-enter the United States untraced days later.\n\nOn May 8, 2024, an El Salvadoran migrant was arrested for allegedly murdering a woman and the malicious assault of two homeless individuals with a baseball bat in West Virginia. He had an extensive criminal history and was in prison in El Salvador for over twenty years for \u201cDUI [driving under the influence], sexual assault/murder, aggravated robbery, and narcotics related crimes.\u201d Law enforcement believes he illegally entered the United States shortly after his release from prison.\n\nThis is just a snapshot from this year alone of the sorts of preventable tragedies, which have become all too common across the United States.\n\nThe Biden-Harris administration\u2019s policies\u2014pulling resources, reversing Remain in Mexico, and stopping wall construction\u2014are largely to blame for our open and unsafe border over the last three-and-a-half years. Because of your actions and inactions, every state is now a border state and every community is a border community.\n\nGiven your role as the leader of engagement with this region, which the media has colloquially dubbed as \u201cBorder Czar\u201d or \u201cRoot Causes Czar,\u201d I ask that you provide answers to the following immigration and border policy questions by October 24, 2024.\n\nHave you engaged with your international counterparts regarding violence perpetrated against innocent Americans by citizens of their countries? Have you raised this concern with any counterpart(s)? If so, what concerns were raised and when? What was their response?\n\nIn light of the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s ending of Remain in Mexico in 2021, what data can you provide suggesting migration from Mexico has been \u201cstemmed\u201d as you were tasked with accomplishing prior to 2024?\n\nIn February 2024, the Biden-Harris administration endorsed a proposal that, among other provisions, included a requirement that a few hundred million dollars in unspent funds be used specifically for border wall construction. As noted above, the Biden-Harris administration previously returned $2 billion allocated for the purpose of building a border wall. Did the Biden-Harris administration ever consider reversing course regarding this funding? If not, why not? If so, why has no discernable action been taken to that end?\n\nThe Biden-Harris administration has auctioned off some $300 million worth of unused border wall materials for mere pennies on the dollar. Why did the Biden-Harris administration endorse a proposal asking Congress to require them to use hundreds of millions of unspent dollars for border wall construction after deciding to sit on hundreds of millions of dollars\u2019 worth of unused supplies instead of building the wall?", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:57:20Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-demands-vp-harris-own-up-for-failures-as-border-czar"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6945169772952795, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}