Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that he will lead the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he intends to immediately take up President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to reinstate a policy requiring asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.
Paul said he will be the committee’s new chair after Republicans won control of the Senate in this month’s elections. The new role will put Paul — a limited-government advocate and longtime skeptic of surveillance programs — in charge of a committee with broad jurisdiction over government operations, including the Department of Homeland Security. Paul has been the committee’s ranking Republican during Democratic control of the Senate.
“I chose to chair this committee over another because I believe that, for the health of our republic, Congress must stand up once again for its constitutional role,” Paul said in a statement. “This committee’s mission of oversight and investigations is critical to Congress reasserting itself.”
Paul, in his third term, said he will immediately take up a key part of Trump’s immigration policy — forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for immigration court hearings in the United States.
Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022 scrapped the policy, which critics said was inhumane for exposing migrants to extreme violence in Mexico and making access to attorneys far more difficult.
“Our first hearing will examine reinstating the successful ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy from the first Trump administration,” Paul said. “We will also expeditiously move President Trump’s critical nominees, including Governor Kristi Noem, in time for Inauguration Day.”
Trump selected Noem, South Dakota’s governor, to head the Department of Homeland Security, an agency that’s integral to his vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.
Paul was first elected in 2010, when he rode a conservative tea party wave right past the GOP establishment in Kentucky, bringing his libertarian-leaning brand to the Senate. He ran for president in 2016 but was swamped by Trump’s first successful run for the White House.
Paul consistently rails against federal spending as he warns about the nation’s soaring debt. He signaled that his chairmanship will be guided by his views on spending as well as on government regulations that he often sees as burdensome on the economy.
Another goal, he said, is for the committee to carry out “consequential bipartisan oversight and investigations.” Paul didn’t elaborate but during his 2022 reelection run he said he wanted to wage a vigorous review into the origins of COVID-19 if he gained a committee chairmanship. Paul, an ophthalmologist, opposed what he viewed as government overreach in response to the pandemic.
His new role as a committee chairman will give Paul considerably more clout, after years when he rejected and occasionally even shut down Washington’s normal workings to promote his vision of limited government and restraint in foreign policy.
Back in Kentucky, Paul remains popular but he suffered a policy setback this month when voters soundly rejected a ballot measure that was intended to allow state lawmakers to allocate public tax dollars to support students attending private or charter schools. Paul was a prominent supporter of the proposal. The opposition was led by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who said that tax dollars allocated for education should only go to public schools. Beshear is seen as a rising Democratic star as the national party looks to recover from its losses in this month’s election.
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