House Democrats Open to Shutting Down Border to fix Immigration Crisis

WASHINGTON—With the border crisis continuing to be the single most important issue that seems to transcend across social, political, and ideological lines, more Democratic lawmakers like Florida’s Rep. Jared Moskowitz appear to be supporting more aggressive initiatives to fix the immigration problem, including shutting down the border.

Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration have been blaming Congressional Republicans for not passing immigration reform legislation as the reason for the border crisis.

Rep. Moskowitz, who recently spoke to The Floridian about the immigration crisis, echoed the narrative that House Republicans panned a “bipartisan piece of legislation” that he says “would’ve passed the Senate.”

Moskowitz accuses former President Donald Trump of killing the measure for nothing more than political expediency, and blames his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives for politicizing and stoking “the fire of the border crisis.”

Republicans contend that President Joe Biden can put an end to the border crisis with one stroke of his executive pen, but Moskowitz cautions that an executive order to reimplement an immigration policy like the ”Remain in Mexico” measure could be “challenged in court.”

Like Reps. Ruben Gallego (D) and Vicente Gonzalez (D), Moskowitz is open to going back to using effective immigration measures like the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy and is open to shutting down the border to Mexico.

“I would be ok if we closed the border except for people who are escaping real persecution,” said Moskowitz. “I’d be ok if we closed the border until we fix the immigration issue.”=

Moskowitz didn’t say that he wanted the “Remain in Mexico” policy to be brought back in its entirety, but there are “parts of the policy” he thinks should be brought back, perhaps a “hybrid” version of “something similar.

Yeah, remain in Mexico policy., there are parts of that policy that I think we should bring back, but there were also problems that resulted from that, but there could be a hybrid, something similar.

President Biden is expected to address the border crisis during the State of the Union address later this week.