Sen. Joni Ernst, who was part of a GOP delegation that recently traveled to the southern border for two days of meetings and tours, Monday on Newsmax described the situation she witnessed as "absolutely horrible."
The seven senators, led on the trip by Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas, "saw just a small sliver," of the border, Ernst, an Iowa Republican, said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America," but what they saw was "enlightening."
"As a mom. I was just shocked and appalled at the stories I was hearing not only from the migrants but from the Border Patrol agents that work that sector," said Ernst. "We also heard from a group of landowners that are finding dead bodies on their property.
"We heard of 5- and 6-year-old girls that had been brutally sexually assaulted just a few days prior by the coyotes, those smugglers that are bringing them to the border. Many of these children are unaccompanied there, sent on this journey from Central America from Mexico, facing extraordinary issues all along the way at the hands of these abusers."
The smuggling, said Ernst, is a "racket for the drug cartels."
"What we heard from CBP [Customs and Border Protection] is that the drug cartels in Mexico are no longer warring with each other, necessarily, because there is so much money involved in the smuggling operation that there is plenty to go around for everyone."
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and his administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, are allowing the immigration crisis to continue growing because they are "turning a blind eye" to what is happening, said Ernst.
"Yet the folks on the ground in those areas, they are so frustrated," said Ernst. "They feel that they have lost their rights as American citizens. They don't feel safe living on their own property. They have cars stolen, people looking through their windows at all hours of the night, and their garages and other buildings occupied."
All of this will lead to a "red wave" in Congress this fall, said Ernst, who added that she won't say the administration has an ulterior motive for allowing the border to be ao open.
"We can speculate about that, certainly, but what I do see is that people are very upset," said Ernst. "People that are voting in this fall's elections will bring their thoughts and attitudes to the ballot box and then maybe the administration will wake up."
The border situation is also a "tragedy" said Ernst, "not only for the people on our southern border, but for all of us who deal with fentanyl and methamphetamine issues in our communities."
Ernst said the delegation was also taken out on a night patrol, which does not happen all the time because of the dangers involved, and it was "very eye-opening."
"We encountered several different groups immediately when we were on the ground with those agents and we were able to visit with those migrants that were being brought up to the border," said Ernst. "Many of them just turned themselves in because they know that the agents will process them in and then have no recourse but to simply allow them to go into the interior of the United States.
"They're given notice to show up or a notice to appear, and that's it. They turn them loose."
As a result, "We're approaching 2 million encounters at our southern border," said Ernst. "All of those people know that President Biden's policies will allow them to freely come into the country. And yet we have refugees from Afghan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine who are struggling to get into the country."
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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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