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By Jenny Goldsberry | January 7, 2023

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested a revamped asylum system would help secure the southern border amid record crossings.

Pelosi appeared on This Week Sunday to respond to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection report, stating that it processed more than 302,000 people at the U.S.-Mexico border in December alone. The 83-year-old representative agreed that the border needed securing.

“We must secure our border. That’s for sure. There’s no question about that,” Pelosi said. “But we also must honor our responsibilities in terms of asylum and the rest, and the president has that in his proposal, and what they say is, ‘Oh, it won’t make a difference.’ No, it will make a difference. Let’s get the job done. Let’s do it soon, and we certainly are not going to shut down government.”

The former speaker of the House dismissed Rep. Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) warning that if a solution is not reached at the border, the Republican majority will spark a government shutdown.

“Well, we can’t have a government shutdown. Let’s be grown-up about how we deal with our responsibilities,” Pelosi said. “But I will say this — and it was said in your preview here — The president has put forth a proposal in the supplemental to address the concerns at the border, and the Republicans will not allow that to be brought up. They reject his solution to it.”

This latest CBP report is in addition to the over 10 million immigrants who have reportedly entered the country illegally since Biden took office. It is the most recorded in that amount of time of any administration.

Johnson has also threatened to put forth the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over what Johnson referred to as an “abject failure” to secure the border.

  asylum, border, immigration, Nancy Pelosi