Family apprehensions at the border have increased by more than 800 percent since the last administration as record numbers of people enter the country illegally, marking a crisis that is an emergency and not manufactured, Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., said Thursday.
"It is a national emergency and we need to move forward to resolve it a soon as we can," the North Carolina Republican, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
In this fiscal year alone, which started in October, there have been 138,000 criminal arrests of illegal immigrants, said Walker, and "our infrastructure, our border agents, everything is on the verge of breaking down."
He said he does applaud groups that are doing humanitarian work at the border, as there is a humanitarian and security crisis.
"When one of three young female immigrants that are coming across or trying to make it the border are being assaulted, or one of six young men or boys, I don't know how much more of a crisis it [is], said Walker.
However, there are those in Washington, D.C., who continue to turn their backs and ignore the crisis, Walker said.
"When you go down to the border you'll meet men and women putting their lives on the line," Walker said. "They don't know what kind of diseases they're intercepting, what kind of criminal activity they're intercepting, but they are willing to put their heart and soul into it," Walker said. "It is a travesty and I think it's past time we do something about it. "
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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