The border numbers announced this month should be a point of national pride: fourteen straight months of zero releases, June encounters down to 31,626 nationwide, and southwest apprehensions this fiscal year running lower than a single average month over the past three decades. Drug seizures are climbing at the same time crossings are collapsing.

None of it is guaranteed to last. These gains exist by executive policy alone, and what one administration enforces, the next can abandon with the stroke of a pen. Permanence requires statute.

The House is moving H.R. 9773, the Permanent Trump Secure Border Act, through committee — the Judiciary Committee marked it up this week — and it would codify this enforcement framework, from asylum reform to the end of catch-and-release, into law. When the House passes it, I urge you to be ready to take it up and pass it without delay. The last thing this moment needs is a border security bill stalling in the Senate. Americans deserve an immigration system that works for them, and that means one written into law, not one that changes with each election.

Greg Raven, Apple Valley, CA

Sent to:
Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff