The Mark Kelly campaign released the first of what will be many desperate statements that lie about Kelly’s disastrous record on border security. Since he was sworn into office 16 months ago, Mark Kelly has delivered the worst border crisis in DHS history and worked to dismantle solutions that address the crisis at the border.
The facts don’t lie.
Kelly Claim: “Kelly has stood up to the Administration and his party in order to secure Arizona’s border”
Fact Check: FALSE
The Facts:
Mark Kelly votes with Joe Biden 97 percent of the time, including voting for open borders:
After a year of Mark Kelly in office, the border situation has gotten objectively less secure by any measure:
- On Monday, DHS reported the highest number of illegal border crossings in the department’s history – 221,303 illegal border crossings in March.
- There have now been over 2,498,000 illegal immigrant encounters under Joe Biden and Mark Kelly.
- That does not include the +600,000 “gotaways” who have crossed the border and escaped into the country since Biden and Kelly took office. That’s more than in Trump’s entire 4-year term.
- In Trump’s final year, just 359 illegal immigrants were released by Border Patrol. Under Biden and Kelly, almost 600,000 have been released into the U.S., with over 560,000 released in the last 12 months.
- Seizures of deadly fentanyl doubled last year and the DEA’s Phoenix chief warned of a “tidal wave” of fentanyl, saying “in 25 years of law enforcement, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
- At least 60 murderers (more than the previous five years combined) and 23 terrorists crossed into the U.S. via the wide-open border in FY 2021.
- Southern Arizona law enforcement leaders warned “not only are the numbers higher, but the people making the trek across the border seem more violent and desperate.”
- Residents on the border called it the “worst criminal activity at the border” they have ever seen.
- Dangerous car chases near the border were up 300 percent last year.
- Border towns like Yuma were overrun by an over 2,000 percent surge of illegal immigration last year and this year looks set to be far worse.
- Deportations plunged 70 percent to the lowest rate in 14 years at the same time border encounters hit these record levels.
“These are more of the same desperate lies when Arizonans know the truth. Democrat Mark Kelly always puts Arizona last and has spent his 16 months in office backing Joe Biden’s open borders agenda. Arizonans see the border crisis getting worse with their own eyes and they know Mark Kelly’s claims are a bald-faced lie.” – RNC Spokesperson Ben Petersen
