(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Pat Fallon, a Republican who represents the overwhelmed border state of Texas, had plenty to say about the Democrats' omnibus spending plan, none of it good.
He called the last-minute, 12-bills-in-one behemoth a "gross dereliction of duty."
"I mean, at the last minute, this is Nancy Pelosi's M.O., as you just said, a 4,155-page bill shoved down our throats at the last minute in a lame-duck session. And it has -- it's just littered with pork," Fallon told Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures."
"There's $12 billion, additionally, for the IRS. And the IRS, that agency just got $80 billion in the inflation -- what I call the inflation enhancement act. And there's -- there's a Relief and Works Agency of the U.N. They have a history of anti-Semitic literature and also producing pro-terrorism materials.
"This bill gives them, that agency $65 million, well, $3 million for a beef-friendly highway and $3 million for a LGBTQ museum in New York. It was a -- it was an absolute piece of garbage. And that's why I voted not only no, but hell no."
Fallon said the bill also contained millions of dollars for securing the border in Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Jordan and Oman, but nothing for the U.S. border, where record breaking numbers of migrants cross illegally every day.
However, the congressman noted, the Democrats' spending plan "did include $800 million to shelter illegals and also hundreds of millions of dollars for the NGOs that have helped facilitate this catastrophe.
"The funding for ICE enforcement and removal was flat. And it was woe -- it woefully underfunded the Customs and Border Patrol.
"I mean...this problem is about a thousand percent worse than it was under President Trump," he said.
U.S. Border Protection waited until Christmas weekend to announce that it encountered 233,740 migrants illegally crossing the southwest border in November.
That's up 1 percent from October's elevated level of 231,294. But it's up 33.68 percent from 174,845 a year ago November; and up 224.13 percent from 72,113 in November 2020.
The chart below shows the rapid acceleration in illegal immigration since Joe Biden took office, after stating during a debate in September 2019: "I would, in fact, make sure that there is -- we immediately surge to the border all those people who are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That's who we are. We're a nation that says, you want to flee, and you're fleeing oppression, you should come."
And come they have, with no letup in sight.
A record-breaking 241,136 came in the month of May 2022 alone. And, as some reports have noted, Border Patrol agents now are too busy processing people in overcrowded shelter to go out there and "encounter" everyone who is crossing over.
"The problem is a thousand percent worse," Fallon repeated:
"And Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats' solution? Increase Border Patrol agents by 1 percent. I mean, it's absolutely absurd. It's a gross dereliction of duty."
Fallon called it a "de facto open border right now."
"We had 160 countries represented by people that have been crossing the border illegally. We caught 98 people on the terrorist watch list (in Fiscal Year 2022).
"Drugs and the cartels are being -- it's unbelievable, the policies that Joe Biden has put in place to empower the cartels, because we had -- we -- 28,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized since Joe Biden has been in office.
"We lost 107,000 Americans last year to opioid overdoses, 80,000 to fentanyl. Most of the fentanyl is made in China and ferried through Mexico. This is -- basically, this is asymmetrical warfare being waged by the communist Chinese on our country.
"And Joe Biden...doesn't have the guts to even bring it up to Xi Jinping when he talks to him."
Fallon, a member of the Oversight committee, said Republicans "need to use the power of the purse" when they take control of the House in January.