Montana Congressman Matt Rosendale spoke to KGVO News on Wednesday to talk about a new bill he has just introduced called the 'Secure America Act'.

The bill is "in response to the mass resettlement of unvetted Afghan refugees across America and the crisis at the border. This bill focuses on reforming the United States’ current refugee admission and resettlement process to ensure we take the necessary steps to protect our nation" a press release says.

“We've got nearly 40,000 refugees here that have not been vetted at all,” said Rosendale. “They are not SIV’s. (Special Immigration Visas) They're not people that were helping our soldiers, and they pose a great threat to our communities and our national security. And so what this piece of legislation does is says we're going to take this power back and return it to Congress where it belongs.”

Rosendale said the bill intends to do away completely with the status of ‘humanitarian parolees’, such as the 75 Afghans that will be settled in Missoula.

“We're going to eliminate the ‘Humanitarian Parolee’  status so that an executive cannot come in and just wave a wand and say we are not going to bring unvetted individuals into our country,” he said. “That is going to be under Congress's jurisdiction, which is where it belongs. And then finally, we're going to make sure that the governor of any state has to be contacted before refugees are placed within their state, and if the governor rejects it, then they will not be located there.”

Rosendale also was pleased that President Biden is slowly reopening the U.S.-Canadian border only to those who have been fully vaccinated, saying at least it’s a start.

“I'm very happy the Biden Administration is going to allow land travel to resume,” said Rosendale. “I am though very concerned that the President is going to use this as a tool to advance his COVID-19 vaccine mandates for those to participate, especially at a time when our supply chain continues to add dire consequences for American consumers.”

Rosendale also criticized the Biden Administration for the rapid rise in energy prices, stating that under President Trump, America was more than just energy independent.

“We used to have energy dominance, not just independence, but energy dominance,” he said. “We were producing more crude oil than any country on earth, and we were exporting it. The Biden Administration does nothing more but continue to enhance the strength of our adversaries by supporting a pipeline like the Nord Stream Two, instead of keeping the permit in place to complete the Keystone XL pipeline so that we could have more production here domestically.”

KGVO published a story on Tuesday about how Soft Landing Missoula used Congressman Rosendale’s comments on the Afghan ‘humanitarian parolees’ to raise nearly $35,000 to help fund resettlement of the refugees in Missoula.

 

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