Two congressional Republicans say they have learned from a whistleblower that the Biden administration is warning Border Patrol agents they will be fired unless they receive the COVID vaccination by November — even as illegal immigrants crossing into the US don’t have to get the shot.
Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Tom McClintock of California sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warning him that failure to support the federal law enforcement officials will “only make the Biden border crisis worse and make our country less secure.”
“It is simply unbelievable that the Biden Administration will allow COVID-positive illegal aliens to surge across the border but will terminate dedicated law-enforcement officers who do not comply with Biden’s mandate,” the letter, posted on the House Judiciary Committee’s Twitter account and dated Tuesday, said.
The two GOP lawmakers said they hope Mayorkas sees the “error in this decision” for the safety of the country and support the “heroes of CBP who put their lives on the line every day.”
Jordan and McClintock, members of the committee, urged the DHS secretary to “find reasonable accommodations for CBP officers who do not choose to comply with this mandate for personal and medical reasons.”
The president on Sept. 9 signed an executive order requiring federal employees to be vaccinated or be terminated.
He also said companies with 100 workers or more must require employees to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing.
“It has come to our attention that the men and women of the CBP have been given official notice that they must be fully vaccinated by November 2021 or face termination,” the letter said.
Jordan and McClintock said the requirement will only make it harder to recruit and train men and women in the Border Patrol.
“The locations of the job are typically remote and the job is often dangerous and hard. Their job is made even harder when senior officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, spread false accusations of cruelty – as has occurred in recent days to mounted officers in Del Rio,” the letter said.
“Citing the misinformation about cruelty, President Biden even vowed the Border Patrol officers ‘will pay,’” they continued.
They were referring to the administration’s reaction to images that appeared to show mounted Border Patrol agents using reins as whips to prevent Haitian migrants from crossing into the US.
The El Paso Times published a clarification that the agents weren’t using whips.
And the photographer who took the shots acknowledged the images could be “misconstrued,” adding that he’s never seen the agents “whip anyone.”
The GOP congressmen accused the Biden administration of being “derelict in its duty” to secure the border.
They cited figures showing the Border Patrol had 1,263,295 encounters with illegal immigrants since January. The two also noted that more than 14,000 Haitian migrants camped out under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
“The Biden Administration has stubbornly refused to address the crisis, allowing more and more illegal aliens to pour into our country and creating an unsustainable, humanitarian crisis,” they wrote.