GOP senator: Migrants cause 'environmental crisis' at border by 'trampling' plants

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said during an appearance on conservative network First TV’s “The Dana Show” on Wednesday said migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are causing an “environmental crisis.”

“For all of those that are concerned about the environment, we have an environmental crisis because the migrants are running across the border, they’re trampling through the ecosystem,” Blackburn said.

She also said that unfinished roads that were cut to make way for construction of the border wall under the Trump administration would “wash” when “the monsoons come.”

The sudden interest in environmental issues is a departure for Blackburn.

In its most recent scorecard for Congress, released in 2020, the League of Conservation Voters rated Blackburn among the most environmentally unfriendly members of the Senate, giving her a 2020 score of 0% and a lifetime score of 3% The environmental group’s average rating for senators in 2020 was 46%.

Blackburn is the League’s lowest-rated legislator in her state of Tennessee for 2020. The recently retired Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander had a rating of 15% for 2020 and 20% overall in the same survey.

Blackburn has been a visible member of the Republican caucus in promoting the idea that there is a “border crisis,” which they blame on President Joe Biden.

She recently toured the border alongside a conservative sheriff infamous for blaming Hillary Clinton for the Jan. 6 attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

From the March 31 edition of The First’s “The Dana Show”:

MARSHA BLACKBURN: For all of those that are concerned about the environment, we have an environmental crisis. Because the migrants are running across the border, they’re trampling through the ecosystem.

 

We have roads that have been cut for putting in the wall, and what is going to happen when the monsoons come? Those unfinished roads are going to wash. There is going to be all of this rock and dirt from the mountains that are going to end up in these beautiful farmlands and on these ranches.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.