By Mike Rogers
Represents the 3rd District of Alabama

As the humanitarian and national security crisis continues unabated at our southern border, Democrats refuse to acknowledge what is really happening. Unfortunately, this is becoming a pattern for them.

They even go as far to say it is a manufactured crisis by the Trump Administration. Before President Trump took office, those same folks that are completely against solving the crisis now, were in favor of helping solve it then.

Numbers don’t lie.  Just in March, border apprehensions were up 450 percent compared with March of 2017.  In the first six and a half months of this fiscal year, more migrants — totaling at 414,000 — than all of last fiscal year have already been apprehended.  These numbers prove that we have a true crisis on our hands.

In order to try and deal with this crisis, President Trump announced that his administration will impose new regulations on the United States asylum system.

As it is set up now, criminals, drug smugglers, human traffickers and terrorists use the flaws in the system to their advantage.

This is just plain dangerous.  We must only protect those individuals with legitimate asylum claims.

I applaud President Trump on taking this step to help secure our border and make our country safer. 

Besides these rules changes, we all know the importance and urgency of building the wall.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I traveled on Air Force One with President Trump and a few of my colleagues to California to see firsthand the barriers being used on our Southwest border. These barriers are an important part of the  wall system in addition to technology and manpower.  They were impressive to see in person and I will say it again:  Walls work. As always, I want to hear from you on this or any issue.