The Sconi

With U.S. Southern border arrests now topping a record two million, U.S. Senate Republicans charge democrats continue to have the wrong focus, as evidenced by their recent enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act.

"Democrats would rather audit Americans than secure the border,” GOP Senators charged in a post to Twitter. “When they passed their reckless spending bill, they voted against hiring more border patrol agents. Instead, they spent $46 billion to hire 87,000 IRS agents."

Over the past 11 months, the Washington Post reports the White House has announced U.S. authorities have made upward of two million immigration arrests along the southern border, marking the first time annual enforcement statistics have soared to such heights.

Based on the legislation backed by every Senate Democrat and negotiated by Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (WV), the Washington Free Beacon adds that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is poised to receive an $80 billion injection to support its agent hiring spree, which will allow the IRS to "employ more bureaucrats than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI and Border Patrol combined," as the agency seeks to increase tax audits and monitoring on Americans.

Federal data shows the IRS now has 78,661 full-time employees, with the number of agents set to more than double to 165,661 once the Inflation Reduction Act hires are completed. By comparison, the Border Protection counts 19,536 Border Patrol agents; the FBI employs around 35,000 people; the State Department employs just over 77,243 people and the Pentagon employs roughly 27,000 people.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the latest figures also show that government officials detained at least 203,598 migrants attempting to cross over from Mexico in August alone, easily putting law enforcement on pace to top more than 2.3 million arrests during the government’s 2022 fiscal year.

As of Sept. 15, the Department of Homeland Security details that officers were engaging in at least 8,000 migrant encounters per day.

Here in Wisconsin, Senate candidate Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has wasted little time getting on board with party members and throwing his support behind the Inflation Reduction Act. Known for his one-time support for the "Abolish ICE" and "Defund the Police" movements, the MacIver Institute reports Barnes recently told Vote Smart he opposed enforcement of immigration laws by state and local police. It’s also been reported that he took repeated illegal contributions from the lobbyist for Voces de la Frontera, a group that seeks to "Abolish ICE", and also supports sanctuary cities.

Just last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee reports Senate democrats banded to unanimously reject Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) proposal calling for lawmakers to prioritize hiring border patrol agents over IRS audit agents.