Florida Rep. introduces a bill that would allow the DHS Secretary to secure the border

GOP Florida Rep. Kat Cammack discusses the JASON Act which she introduced last month in order to secure the border and give more power to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary. 

"If you were to shut down the border, you need a presidential declaration or authority of the President to do that," Rep. Cammack said on the John Solomon Reports podcast. "This bill, the JASON Act, actually changes the definition and gives some guidelines and defines what a surge at the border is. It's defined by data — not by how people are feeling one particular day or the other."

"It states that if you are experiencing 25% more (migrants) than the previous month or the previous week, that is a surge which puts in an automatic trigger that forces the Department of Homeland Security Secretary to secure the border," Cammack continued. "The JASON Act empowers the Secretary to secure the border without needing the presidential declaration."

Cammack put out a press release in September in which she explained the bill and how it had a lot of support, including from National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd:

"Our Border Patrol agents are facing an unprecedented crisis at the southern border with almost 3.6 million encounters and over 900,000 known gotaways since this administration took office. Narco-terrorist cartels have taken advantage of the situation and ramped up their drug and human smuggling efforts. This has to end," Judd stated in the press release. 

"The JASON Act will give the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to prevent entry into the country when there are border surges and for other situations concerning national security," the statement continued. "This is a brilliant and commonsense tool that will hold the Secretary accountable while giving our agents on the line a much-needed policy to secure the border."

According to Cammack, if Republicans can take the House and the Senate back in the 2022 midterm elections, the border is going to be one of the main priorities.

"When we take the House back and hopefully the Senate, we will be in a position where we can restrict the funding to the Department of Homeland Security until they comply with a secure border policy that we're going to push for," Cammack stated. "Because we know that Biden certainly won't."