Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's announcement that she will serve as an independent rather than a Democrat is bad news for her former party, even though she has said she won't caucus with the Republicans, Rep. Pat Fallon told Newsmax on Friday.
"It could be the first step to her truly becoming independent, and maybe perhaps, I don't know, but someday maybe caucusing with the Republicans," the Texas Republican told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" about the Arizona senator. "It definitely frees her up to be more moderate or centrist, more middle-of-the-road because she's not going to have to face a Democratic primary electorate anymore."
Fallon pointed out that two other independent senators, Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, caucus with the Democrats.
Meanwhile, Sinema's decision "destabilizes" Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's plans, said Fallon, adding that "every time that happens, it's good for America."
The congressman also commented on President Joe Biden's trip to Arizona this week, after the president flew to Phoenix to hail the new plant being built by Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC but refused to visit the state's border with Mexico.
"Biden has been president for nearly 700 days, and he's never visited the southern border," said Fallon, noting that the situation there is a "catastrophe," considering the continually rising numbers of migrants that have come into the country and the illegal narcotics that are passing through.
Meanwhile, the situation is about to get worse with the Title 42 order, put in place during former President Donald Trump's administration, to expire later this month, said Fallon, citing comments from Border Patrol agents.
"They can handle about 5,000 illegal border crossers in any given day, but extrapolate the numbers, and that's about 150,000 a month," said Fallon. "But that's just the people that they encounter. There are another 60,000 or 70,000 that are known gotaways, where they see them crossing the border illegally, but they simply don't have the staff to encounter those folks … after Title 42 goes away, we're talking about 400,000 or 500,000."
Meanwhile, Texas has been left to foot the bill for solving the problem and has threatened to sue the federal government for reimbursement, a plan with which Fallon said he agrees.
"I filed legislation, the Lone Star Act that would reimburse Texas for the billions of dollars that they have spent," said Fallon. "Texas and Arizona would love to enforce some border security. But the federal government will step in and say, 'No, that's our job.' Constitutionally you can't do that."
Meanwhile, Fallon said that even when he was in the Texas state legislature, the state was spending about $1 billion every budget cycle to defend the southern border.
"Because of the cartels, the drug trafficking is off the charts," said Fallon. "When we have 25,000 pounds of fentanyl seized in the last couple of years now some liberals will say, 'Oh, that's a good thing. We're seizing more.' No, that means more is getting in … you can see that with the unfortunate deaths of 107,000 Americans last year due to opioid overdoses."
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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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