Illegal Immigration – We Cannot Allow This To Become The Norm (Exclusive Op-ed by Congressman John Rose)

My Commitment: Fighting Illegal Immigration

Image Credit: US Border Patrol / Facebook

By U.S. Representative John Rose (R-TN-District 6) –

Just south of Tennessee’s capital in Franklin, Tennessee, a 63-year-old man is facing some of the worst and most horrific charges imaginable: rape and sexual assault. It breaks my heart even more to say these crimes involved children as young as nine years old.

Investigators have identified several victims, but they’re asking more to come forward as some of these crimes go back more than a decade. Police say the accused predator targeted playgrounds and lured young boys under the guise that he was a soccer coach recruiting for his team. Despicable and disgusting—to say the least. 

Days after this news broke, families learned the man accused of violating their community has lived there for 20 years—but had no business being there. The accused man is an illegal immigrant.

This raises many questions, like was the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) aware that the perpetrator was in the country illegally? Was he provided a ‘Notice to Appear’ (a formal document issued by DHS to an individual who is suspected of being removable from the US, often considered the first step in the removal process) when he entered the country illegally? Did DHS initiate any enforcement actions against him? 

Senator Marsha Blackburn, other members of the Tennessee Congressional delegation, and I asked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas these questions in a formal letter.

Unfortunately, this is a very grim example of the very real consequences open border policies are having on state after state, county after county, and an example of how President Biden’s open-border policies have made every town in America a border town—including Franklin, Tennessee. 

Since this fiscal year started in October 2022, nearly 20,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized at the border. That’s already more than last fiscal year’s total, and we still have about two months left!

Furthermore, since October 1, Customs and Border Protection officials have caught more than 125 people trying to cross the southern border who are on the terrorist watchlist. 

No one in this country should glaze over a number like that. 125 possible terrorists have tried to enter our country since last October. That’s more than Fiscal Years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 combined. How many managed to make it across that we don’t know about? Well, we can estimate that more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants have successfully evaded law enforcement since the Biden Administration took over the White House.

And yet, in May, the Biden Administration announced it would be releasing a flood of immigrants into the United States with no way of keeping track of them.

Instead of getting a grip on this humanitarian and national security crisis, President Biden and his administration have been busy fighting Title 42 and the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy. To be fair, the president did make his first trip to the border of his 50-year political career – first trip ever – in January. 

As we continue to see records being broken, crime soaring, fentanyl popping up in all corners of our country, and overdose deaths rising, it is important for Americans everywhere to implore President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas to do their constitutional duty and secure our southern border.

I promise you, as long as I am in Congress and in Washington, D.C., I will continue doing everything I can to shed light on this issue and admonish the President through any and all means available to Congress to take immediate action.

We cannot allow this to become the norm.