Lankford, Republican senators hold press conference on border crisis

OKLAHOMA (KSWO) - Oklahoma Senator James Lankford and other Republicans held a press conference Wednesday on the current border crisis, condemning the current administration’s lack of immigration plans following the Supreme Court temporarily extending Title 42.

Lankford opened by acknowledging the temporary status of the policy. He then questioned what plans are in place for after it ends.

“Title 42 was always intended to be a temporary authority to be able to deal with the pandemic issues -- always,” Lankford said. “The problem has been that I’ve asked questions of the administration for the last eight months in particular: ‘What are you going to do when it actually ends?’”

The immigration restrictions, often referred to as Title 42, were put in place during the pandemic under then-President Donald Trump. They had been set to expire Wednesday before Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order to keep them in place.

Lankford continued to question the administration and state his feelings that its plan is not working. He then commented on what he believes are “key issues” with immigration.

“When you incentivize illegal activity, you get more illegal activity,” Lankford said. “What they’ve done is they’ve taken the dollars that have been allocated to them for enforcement and they’ve instead used those dollars for processing to speed up the processing issues they have at the border.”

READ: Suspense builds at border over future US asylum rules

The senator announced he’ll be bringing two bills to the floor and asking for unanimous consent. One bill deals with the maintaining of Title 42 authority while the other will address asylum rules.