On a ranch just north of the US-Mexico border in Falfurrias, Texas, local property owner Richard walked me past destroyed fences and piles of garbage left behind by swaths of illegal immigrant trespassers. Frustrated with the White House, he asked, “Where in the hell is Kamala?”

During my visit to our southern border earlier this month, Biden’s “Border Czar” was indeed missing in action, and the administration’s refusal to secure our nation was on full display. The ranchers I spoke with left no doubt in my mind that the rising tide of illegal immigration is destroying border communities and creating a humanitarian crisis. Property owners are forced to spend time and money they don’t have to repair damage, round up scattered cattle, and carry the liability for thousands of migrants flooding across private property.

On their journey, these men, women, and children face miles of boiling desert heat with little to no water. The cartels’ cash, raked in by endangering and exploiting illegal immigrants, is nothing less than blood money. After the sun set over the Rio Grande Valley, I encountered a group of women and children who had made their way across the border. One child, clearly exhausted, was sound asleep on their mother’s shoulder. For ranchers and law enforcement in Texas, finding dead migrants and children abandoned by the cartels is a frequent occurrence. These people aren’t left behind by accident. The cartel is in complete control, and once the migrants have done the traffickers’ bidding, they are left to fend for themselves.

While law enforcement officers are working tirelessly to secure our southern border, the Biden administration has done everything in their power to make that task more difficult. The White House spent billions canceling the border wall project, covered up the fallout by blocking press access, denied adequate funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and took away National Guard resources even as the number of migrant encounters surpassed historic levels.

The Biden administration is not neglecting the border — they are intentionally abandoning the very concept of border security. White House officials refuse to witness the consequences of their radical policies firsthand, but that does not void their responsibility to American citizens. The solutions are straightforward: build the wall, stop waging war against President Trump’s successful Remain in Mexico policy, end catch and release, and embrace Title 42.

As we finished our walk, Richard said he is counting on me to fight for him in Washington. The White House has categorically failed to answer the call, but Richard’s demands for a strong border still resonate with citizens in Tennessee and across the country. I am in this fight because I know that until Joe Biden takes our safety and security seriously, every town is a border town, and every state is a border state.