In a video posted to social media late Thursday night, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise described standing at the border and watching droves of illegal aliens simply walk into the United States – even gesturing to one such group walking behind him as he spoke.
Scalise, who traveled to the border as part of a GOP delegation that wanted to see President Joe Biden’s border crisis first-hand, explained that in the less than an hour he’d been touring the area with border agents, multiple groups of people had simply walked across the border and turned themselves into immigration officials without any clear sense of fear or worry.
“Here they are right here,” Scalise says, motioning to a group of about a dozen men, women and children walking through the field behind him as he’s speaking.
Related: Border Patrol Official Estimates Over 1 Million Migrants to Cross Border in 2021
"We just saw a large number of kids just come running across the border,” he explained, as the group crosses calmly behind him. “They just came in to the country illegally, ran across, and just got apprehended by border patrol agents. And it’s going on all around us.”
Scalise said he estimated “probably over 100 people just in the last hour” had crossed the border as he stood and watched.
“They’re off to a processing center and they’re coming into America, because Joe Biden’s created this magnet where he said, the border’s open,” the Louisiana congressman said.
Immigration officials have estimated more than 1 million illegal aliens, including 184,000 unaccompanied children and teens, will cross the U.S. border unlawfully this year alone, a total that would mark a 20-year high in illegal immigration. Border agents have reported having to turn many illegal aliens lose into the country without so much as a notice to appear in court for an immigration hearing due to overcrowded conditions at border facilities that have left agents without the space even to process some families who've entered illegally.