Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) says conservatives in Congress are focused on halting the political establishment’s “managed decline” of the United States — one of many reasons that House Republicans recently passed the “Secure the Border Act” to drastically increase interior immigration enforcement, mandate national E-Verify, and effectively eliminate the process known as “Catch and Release” at the U.S.-Mexico border, among other things.
During an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Saturday, Crane told Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle that House conservatives are scoring wins even if the Democrat-controlled Senate refuses to take up their legislation.
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“The entire country, the entire conference, and most certainly House leadership took note of the fact that it’s a new day in Washington, DC,” Crane said. “We have enough solid conservative Republicans who are willing to hold the line even when a lot of the conservative media was attacking us … and we just don’t care because we’re tired of watching the managed decline of this country.”
“We’re willing to be called every name in the book to try to do something about it,” he continued. “You’ve seen it in this pretty robust border bill that we just passed as well.”
Among those victories is the Secure the Border Act which House Republicans passed 219-213, with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and John Duarte (R-CA) joining Democrats to oppose.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks alongside fellow Republican lawmakers after the House passed H.R.2 – the Secure the Border Act of 2023 at the U.S. Capitol, May 11, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The landmark legislation came at a time when President Joe Biden’s administration ended one of the last few remaining border controls, known as Title 42, despite warnings for years of a “mass migration event” from his own officials.
“Americans are going to see this invasion and, as a byproduct, this administration rolling out the red carpet … and what that’s going to do for the American people,” Crane said. “Over 100,000 people that we’ve already lost to fentanyl, those numbers are going to go up … it’s going to be on full display just how reckless and incompetent this administration really is.”
The Secure the Border Act includes a number of provisions to drastically cut illegal immigration in the U.S., including by requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to build at least 900 miles of border wall where there is none currently along the southern border.
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In addition, the landmark legislation:
- Mandates national E-Verify to protect American workers from illegal labor mark competition
- Bans Biden’s migrant mobile app from being used by migrants to enter the U.S. interior
- Requires migrants to have a “credible fear of persecution” to seek asylum
- Limits the federal government’s ability to release migrants into the U.S. interior, instead requiring detention or removal
- Allows DHS to immediately turn migrants away at the border if they do not have basic proper travel documents
- Gives DHS the power to repatriate Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) to their native countries when they do not meet “credible fear of persecution” standards
- Cracks down on illegal visa overstays with harsher civil fines and criminal penalties
- Prevents DHS’s use of parole on a broad-scale basis that has been used to mass catch and release migrants into the U.S. interior
- Increases penalties for businesses who hire illegal aliens
Crane also noted that a group of House conservatives have sought to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his overseeing the highest levels of illegal immigration on record in American history.
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That effort, though, has been met with reluctance from many House Republicans.
“Some of us have introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas although I’m not too sure that we have the backbone in this conference to actually impeach him,” Crane said.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.