Pfluger: In President Trump’s First Year, America Took Our Border Back

The following is an opinion piece sent in from Rep. August Pfluger (TX-11): 

A year ago, President Donald Trump returned to office and made one thing clear – our country’s surrender at the southern border was over.

Gone are the days of communities being pushed to the brink to absorb the consequences of Democrats’ open-border policies that allowed violent criminals to take control, enabled nationwide lawlessness, and allowed criminal cartels to call balls and strikes at our borders, threatening the sovereignty of our nation. 

President Biden, Border Czar Harris, and the Democrat Party allowed our southern border to become a gateway for chaos. Americans loudly rejected this insanity and elected a leader who understood what too many politicians had refused to say out loud -- a nation without borders is not a nation. If we can’t control who comes into our country, we can’t protect our citizens, secure our economy, or defend our future.

No state bore the brunt of Biden's border catastrophe like Texas. For four years, Texas communities watched helplessly as millions of illegal aliens flooded across the southern border, overwhelming local law enforcement, hospitals, and community resources. There is no shortage of stories from our district of families and communities who were devastated by the scourge of drugs and illegal aliens resulting from the previous administration’s open-border policies. When the federal government refused to protect its own citizens, the State of Texas stepped up.

However, in just one year of President Trump’s leadership, our immigration laws are being enforced again, and his border policies have delivered seven months of zero releases at the border -- an unprecedented victory. At the same time, the Administration has successfully located thousands of unaccompanied children who were lost under President Biden – many of whom had been exposed to human smugglers and sex traffickers.

Today, it’s an indisputable fact that President Trump’s immigration policies are saving American citizens from being killed, raped, and assaulted at the hands of criminal illegal aliens with no right to be here. Border crossings have fallen by 93% under President Trump’s leadership. And thanks to Republicans' passage of the President's Big Beautiful Bill, we're finally making Texas taxpayers whole. For years, our state spent billions on Operation Lone Star—billions we never should have had to spend—deploying the National Guard, erecting barriers, and securing the border because the federal government refused to do its constitutional duty. Texas stepped up to do the job Washington abandoned, and now we're ensuring the federal government is held accountable for the costs our state was forced to bear.

President Trump’s deportation efforts have also been a massive success. A staggering 70% of the 650,000+ illegal aliens deported by the Trump Administration since taking office have been charged with, or convicted of crimes, and fentanyl trafficking across the southern border has been slashed in half -- leading to lower fentanyl levels and fewer overdose deaths. Through mass deportations, the Trump Administration is freeing up resources, revitalizing opportunity, lowering housing costs, and restoring safety, just as the American people elected him to do.

The media will never give President Trump credit for this. News segment after news segment and article after article continue to treat border security as if it is controversial rather than the most basic duty of government. But the American people know better, because they have lived through the consequences of Democrats’ wide-open border and now feel resoundingly safer under the leadership of President Trump. 

President Trump is delivering what Americans have demanded for years -- law and order at the border, security for our communities, and a return to sanity. After one year, Americans can finally say what they couldn’t say under President Joe Biden: our borders are secure, and our country is back.