Wnited States Senate WASHINGTON, DC 20510 March 27, 2021 President Joseph Biden The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear President Biden: ‘The current surge of illegal immigrants at the southern border is the worst the country has seen in twenty years. The crisis surrounding this surge makes it a moral imperative for you to see firsthand what is happening—and not the sanitized version of the border tour taken by some of my congressional colleagues. Having personally gone this week, I can testify to this being an inhumane, unsustainable and dangerous situation, You must take swift action before the entire system collapses under its own weight. To put the current surge in context, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered! more new migrants in the month of January than in the Januaries of the last decade—over 78,000. The surge at the border has heightened since that time, not dissipated. In February 2021, there were 100.441 CBP encounters at the Southwest border. Of those encounters, most (96,974 ot 96.5 percent) were aliens apprehended by CBP afier entering illegally. In February, 19.5 percent were family units, and 9,297 (9.58 percent) were unaccompanied alien children. Asa result, care facilities for children are at capacity by the time they get stood uy processing centers and our CBP personnel are overwhelmed: and a significant number of these minors are reportedly being held longer than is legally permitted. Instead of curbing incentives to cross our borders, your administration is opening the door wider, stating that it plans to release parents and children within 72 hours of their arrival in the United States. As you can sce from photos I took this week, the conditions are unacceptable and we cannot embrace policies that will exacerbate such conditions. * Encounters are the sum of Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal migrants plus aliens deemed inadmissible at the ports of entry by CBP officers,President Joseph Biden March 27, 2021 Page 2 In closing, I regret to say that the consequences of hastily considered policies by your Administration is playing out before the country’s eyes. Instead of taking time to fully understand the situation at the border, there was a race to do the opposite of what President ‘Trump did in order to appease the radical left, even it if policies of your predecessor were successful. From day one of your administration, there were promises of legal status and citizenship for illegal immigrants; promises to have the government help pay the travel expenses involved in placing children with sponsors; policies to accept all unaccompanied minors; and a halting of construction of the border wall. These are examples of policies and rhetoric that incited tens of thousands to storm our southern border ‘An insecure border is not only a humanitarian crisis, but also a dire national security threat, I therefore respectfully ask that you take steps to adapt your schedule in order for you to {g0 to the border as soon as possible, and then take steps to halt all incentives to come illegally to our country. [am available to provide additional information about my encounters at the border at any time Sincerely. Mike Braun US. Senator, Indiana