Rounds, Scott Introduce Legislation to Bolster Border Security
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) introduced the Securing Our Border Act, which would redirect $15 billion of funding passed by Democrats to hire 87,000 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents and instead utilize it to bolster security measures along our southern border.
“President Biden’s priorities are out of whack,” said Rounds. “More than five million illegal immigrants have entered the country through our southern border during his presidency. Instead of finding solutions to this national security threat, the Biden administration has hired 87,000 new IRS agents who will conduct an additional 1.2 million audits per year. The majority of these audits will be on hardworking Americans making less than $75,000 per year. Our priority should be solving an out-of-control problem at the southern border, not creating a new one with the IRS. Combatting drug and human trafficking is more important than monitoring the finances of law-abiding Americans. This commonsense legislation would redirect taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars to keep American communities safe and help eliminate the ongoing border crisis.”
“We have a crisis on our southern border,” said Scott. “Rather than putting resources in place to address this major national security and humanitarian catastrophe, the Biden administration and congressional Democrats chose instead to spend $45 billion of taxpayer money to hire an army of IRS agents to audit the middle class. While President Biden continues to drop the ball, I’m introducing legislation to fund border infrastructure and give our Border Patrol agents the tools they need to help stop the unaddressed flows of illicit goods and persons into this country. Americans need more border agents keeping them safe – not thousands more IRS agents looking over their shoulder.”
The Securing Our Border Act would:
- Fund nonintrusive border inspections to better equip our law enforcement’s capability to track drugs and other illicit contraband before it enters the United States.
- Fund border wall construction and other technologies to bolster tracking and enforcement efforts along the southwestern border.
- Provide retention bonuses for Border Patrol agents to help mitigate morale issues.
- End the “Catch and Release” policy utilized by the Biden administration.
The National Border Patrol Council, which represents approximately 18,000 Border Patrol agents, endorses this legislation.
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