Rep. Michael McCaul just became the first Texan to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He’s uniquely qualified for the job.
President Joe Biden doesn’t exactly enjoy a sterling reputation on the subject of foreign policy. It’s something about which officials from the Obama and W. Bush administrations agree.
“On a personal level he is a friendly guy, but he has empirically had poor judgment, particularly on foreign policy,” former Bush assistant secretary of state Robert Charles told Fox and Friends in 2019. “The examples are numerous.”
Biden’s political allies have been even less circumspect on the subject.
“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” wrote former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his 2014 book.
While President Joe Biden inherited his fair share of simmering foreign policy issues bound to come to a head sooner or later on someone’s watch — like Afghanistan — he hasn’t always made the situation better — like Afghanistan.
There have been serious missteps that have negatively impacted U.S. foreign policy and issues of national security during Biden’s tenure as President.
One of those issues is the humanitarian crisis currently taking place at the U.S. southern border.
Elected officials in border areas — Republican and Democrat — have been increasingly trying to draw attention to the worsening situation at the southern border for some time without much success.
From deadly fentanyl flowing over the open border to an explosion in human trafficking, Texas communities, along with other border states and areas, have seen the destruction and devastation at the border firsthand.
“DEA seized enough Fentanyl to kill every person in the U.S. in 2022,” reported the Washington Post on December 20, 2022.
“In one year, authorities seized enough fentanyl to kill every single American,” McCaul added context to the Post article in a retweet. “Even more shocking: That’s only 5-10% of what made it across our border.”
“We need to secure the border,” McCaul asserted.
The deadly scourge of fentanyl isn’t the only threat pouring over the border.
The Biden administration’s border policies — whatever Biden’s good intentions — have resulted in an explosion of human trafficking, particularly the trafficking of minors.
“While human trafficking is a global enterprise, it is also a horrific reality in communities across America — and school-aged children are particularly vulnerable. An estimated 80,000 minors are currently being trafficked in Texas alone, with many cases originating at school,” said McCaul in a statement about anti-human trafficking legislation he recently co-sponsored with Democrat Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee.
The border crisis may be reaching its critical point, however.
As of this week, the Biden administration has taken the extraordinary step of sending President Biden to tour overwhelmed border facilities in El Paso — albeit, in a very limited way. President Biden also made a recent attempt — though halfhearted and a bit late — to incentivize would-be immigrants to the U.S. to apply from their home countries for sanctuary.
Securing the U.S. southern border is something many Democrats avoid talking about because they think it's a conversation about immigration: It’s not.
Securing the U.S. southern border is not an immigration issue; it’s a foreign policy concern, a humanitarian responsibility, and a national security issue of utmost importance.
Congressman Michael McCaul understands this intrinsically.
He, like so many other dedicated public servants, is listening to the concerns of his constituents in Texas. They are telling him Biden’s border policies are inhumane, dangerous and unsustainable.
With Committee Chairman McCaul now at the helm of House Foreign Affairs, the Biden administration might finally have to listen.