GOP's Stefanik slams Biden admin over handling of northern border

New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik on Tuesday excoriated President Joe Biden over the porous state of the nation's northern border with Canada.

The co-chair of the Northern Border Caucus, Stefanik lamented in an email press release that "Joe Biden has brought his Southern Border crisis to New York State, and now the Biden Administration finally admits the Northern Border across my district is not secure."

"From the beginning, I have stood up for our border patrol and warned against how Joe Biden's Southern Border crisis has forced border patrol agents in my district into no-notice deployments, weakening morale and leaving security openings at the Northern Border," she contended. "But it has taken months for him to admit his crisis at the Northern Border. My office is in touch with numerous families along the Northern Border who are documenting vast amounts of illegals crossing their own properties."

"Instead of addressing this crisis, Joe Biden has passed the buck and shipped his crisis to New York State with the assist from Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams, who both support policies to incentivize illegal immigrants to continue to pour into New York," Stefanik continued. "Our taxpayers, border patrol agents, and Upstate communities are unfairly bearing the brunt of this crisis. We must secure our border and support our border patrol agents."

The New York lawmaker cited reports from U.S. Customs and Border Protection indicating an 846% increase in migrant encounters from October 2022 through January 2023 at the northern border compared with the same period the year prior.

The Biden administration's handling of immigration has attracted considerable scrutiny from Republicans. A record 2.4 million migrants entered the U.S. during fiscal year 2022 alone and more than 4 million have done so since Biden took office in early 2021.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.