YUMA, Ariz. (Border Report) — Yuma City Hall hosted members of the House Judiciary Committee for a forum on immigration and the border.
The event was dubbed “The Biden Border Crisis: Part II.”
It promised to examine the Department of Homeland Security’s operations at the southwest border.
Committee members also heard testimony from witnesses including the Yuma County’s sheriff, a Yuma County supervisor and the CEO of Yuma’s Regional Medical Center, all Republicans.
They spent the previous night, visiting spots along the southern border in Arizona and speaking with Border Patrol agents.
As the forum began Thursday afternoon, it quickly turned into a finger-pointing session as Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan slammed President Joe Biden and Democrats for not doing enough to curtail what he called a “crisis.”
“Democrats’ open border policies have caused this crisis and rather than choosing to do anything to fix it, they want to call it a stunt and they want to play political games,” Jordan said.
Jordan, who represents Ohio, said no Democrats accepted an invitation to be involved in this fact-finding mission.
“They’ve accused us of political grandstanding because we’re here trying to hear from real people outside of Washington D.C. and Democrats seem to believe solutions can only come from bureaucrats in Washington, we seem to believe they come from the American people,” Jordan said.
But Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, whose district covers most of the border area between Arizona and Mexico, including southwest Arizona, told Border Report he was never invited to attend.
Grijalva is not a member of the House Judiciary Committee.
“If they want to be serious, let’s sit down because many of us are prepared to incrementally move in a direction that deals with the crisis,” said Grijalva. “To spew the same misinformation and lies that have been part of the rhetoric has nothing to do with policy, it has nothing to do with security, but it has to do with what they see is the political vantage going into 2024.”
