Rep. Cline doubts border will be secured, says White House, Senate refuse to compromise

Congressman Ben Cline, R-Va., said Wednesday that he doubts the southern border is going to be secured anytime soon since it is not a top priority for the White House or Senate. 

"It's a top priority for us," Cline said in reference to House Republicans on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "We want to see a secure border. We've been making that our top priority in negotiations. Unfortunately, the details I'm getting from our leadership is that the Senate refused to compromise. The White House refused to compromise."

Conservative lawmakers have focused on illegal immigration as record numbers of migrant crossings have occurred at the U.S.-Mexico border during President Joe Biden's administration. 

The Homeland Security Department revealed last year that the backlog of tracking and vetting illegal aliens inside the U.S. has nearly doubled under Biden to over six million while arrests of suspected terrorists and violent offenders have also exploded.

"They're talking about more money [going] to process more illegal immigrants into this country, more judges, more CPB agents...we want to support those hard working CPB agents at the border who are standing in the face of this invasion that's happening in our southern border," Cline said. "But we don't want to just process people faster into the interior of the country. We want to stop."

He said that House Republicans want to finish the wall, detain those who cross illegally, and get the border under control.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to happen with this many of us, because we're getting rolled by the Senate and the White House," Cline said. "Unfortunately, we have a one or two vote majority, and we have more than one or two votes on our side that are caving."