A black Republican lawmaker rebuffed claims that the GOP is ‘racist’ for focusing efforts on securing the southern border by claiming Democrats use racism as a ‘scapegoat’ too often.
During questioning at the Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the southern border crisis on Wednesday, Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas went on the defense after the Democratic ranking member accused pro-MAGA Republicans of being ‘racist.’
He was also responding to El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, Democrats’ sole witness for the hearing, who denied there is an ‘invasion’ at the border as the left calls this classification racist in nature.
‘I’ve been black for a long time, sir, so I get it. And I’ve been a minority in this country for a very long time,’ Hunt said. ‘But this is actually not about race, this is actually an issue of public safety.’
Hunt, 41, is a freshman lawmaker from the Lonestar State’s 38th congressional district, based in the Houston area, and came out guns blazing at the first Judiciary Committee hearing of the 118th Congress on Wednesday.
Freshman GOP Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas tore into Democrats who claim calling the southern border crisis an ‘invasion’ is ‘racist’ during the Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on Wednesday
‘If I call this an ‘invasion,’ sir, I’m not racist. I can assure you I’m not racist,’ Hunt said. ‘What I can assure you is that I want to make sure that fentanyl doesn’t indiscriminately kill any race, religion, color or creed. Because fentanyl doesn’t care where you’re from, fentanyl doesn’t care about race. Fentanyl kills indiscriminately.’
Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York said during his opening statement at the hearing that Republicans’ obsession with the southern border is ‘racist.’
‘I wish this committee was starting off on a different note,’ Nadler lamented at the top of his remarks. ‘Unfortunately, this hearing is more of the same haphazard, chaotic style we have come to expect of this new Republican majority.’
‘The first hearing will showcase the racist tendencies of the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the party that seeks to close the border to refugees from places like Cuba and Venezuela,’ he noted.
‘It almost makes me miss their usual obsession with conspiracy theories and the FBI,’ the New York lawmaker quipped. ‘I suspect this hearing is also an attempt to distract from the fact that Republicans have failed to pass any meaningful legislation in their first month in the majority.’
Hunt said Democrats need to be more mindful when haphazardly labeling everything as ‘racist.’
‘And the reason why we have to be careful with what we call and what we deem racist going forward is because we start to lose focus on what the actual problem is,’ the GOP representative said.
‘This administration and Democrat party, unfortunately, uses race as a scapegoat for everything,’ he noted. ‘And as somebody that wants to make sure that we do attack racist issues when they do occur, we can’t be the boy who cried wolf and blame racism all the time.’
‘I am here to hold this administration accountable to understand that there are issues of race that need to be addressed and, sir, this ain’t one of them,’ he directed toward Judge Samaniego.
Democratic Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said during his opening statement: ‘I wish this committee was starting off on a different note… The first hearing will showcase the racist tendencies of the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the party that seeks to close the border to refugees’
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan zeroed-in on the border crisis during the committee’s first hearing of the 118th Congress.
The hearing made good on GOP promises to use their power in the lower chamber to hold President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas accountable for the border crisis.
This was further proven when panel-member Andy Biggs, an Arizona representative, introduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas on Wednesday afternoon.
‘There’s been a break in the dam, and that’s pretty obvious,’ Hunt said of the border crisis.
December figures showed a brand new all-time-high in apprehensions at the southern border with 251,487 in the single winter month where conditions reached sub-freezing temperatures in the Texas and Arizona deserts.
The latest figures, as January numbers won’t be released for another few weeks, tops the last high from May 2022, also under Biden’s leadership.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has encountered more than 4.5 million migrants at the southern border since Biden took office in January 2021, which Jordan noted during his remarks at the hearing Wednesday.
Figures released for December show that the number of encounters at the southern border are continuing to rise – and reached a new all-time single month high of 251,487
He also noted several other figures since Biden’s presidency began. The list includes the 1.7 million illegal migrants released into the U.S.; the 8,100 average per-day number of encounters at the southwest border in December; the 1.1 million known gotaways; and the exact single-year high reached in 2022 with 2,378,944 encounters.
Jordan said several records were reached in FY2022, including 856 migrants dying as they attempted to cross the southern border and the 98 aliens encountered on the terrorist watch.
Despite the staggering encounter rate, Biden and Mayorkas have assured the southern border is closed and have insisted their policies work, refusing to admit there is a crisis at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
