Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) voted against the border humanitarian aid funding bill late last month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reversed course and pushed for approval of the Senate version of the bill.

Tlaib, like her pals Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Ayanna Presley (D-MA) were just four of many Democrats in the House to suggest earlier this year that there wasn’t a humanitarian crisis, that it was manufactured.

But once they decided it was a crisis, they quickly blamed President Trump – and then repeatedly refused to consider the administration’s request for $4.6 billion in funding to help alleviate the humanitarian issues.

Congresswoman Tlaib appeard on ABC News‘s “This Week” program on Sunday morning to defend her vote against the funding. Here’s what she said:

She said on Sunday that rather than listen to acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, who appeared on the program before her and denied the accusations, she would listen to the Customs and Border Protection agents she met while touring the detention center.

[…]

“Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues and said more money is not going to fix this, that they were not trained to separate children,” she said. “That they don’t want to separate two year olds away from their mothers. That’s not what they were trained for, that’s not what they signed up for in their service to our country. They signed up to protect the border, not to separate children, not to put people in cages.”

Watch video of Tlaib’s remarks below:

Rep. Rashida Tlaib defends voting against $4.6 billion emergency border bill: "Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues and said, 'more money is not going to fix this," adding, "they all said this is a broken system." https://t.co/hPwYH6mm4T pic.twitter.com/YIeDsRO0nu

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 7, 2019

She later tweeted out a defense of her vote against funding:

But @CBP agents I spoke to said no amount of money will fix this crisis.

One agent said: "Stop throwing money at this. It's not working."

He also said: "This is not what I was trained to do." (meaning separating children from their mothers)#CloseTheCamps https://t.co/XlSBBKOCUT

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) July 7, 2019

There are a number of problems with Tlaib’s explanations.

First: Can you imagine anyone from the CBP telling a member of Congress to NOT approve funding to help them do their jobs? I find this hard – almost impossible – to believe. If conditions are as bad as Tlaib, AOC, and others suggest, they are not going to turn down money that would have the potential to at the very least temporarily resolve some of the issues at the border.

Second: Why would Tlaib be “taken aside”? The trip was organized by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and was comprised entirely of Democratic members of Congress who have taken issue with Trump’s immigration policies. Why would any member of the CBP take Tlaib alone off to the side rather than explain their position to an entire delegation of sympathetic Democratic Congressional representatives?

This story does not add up.

Finally, here’s the biggest problem with Tlaib’s explanation: The Democratic Congressional delegation’s trip to the border was made on Monday July 1st. The vote on the border crisis funding bill was Thursday June 27th. So she had not yet visited the facility in question, had not yet allegedly been pulled “aside” and supposedly been told that more funding wasn’t the answer.

In short, Tlaib is very likely being dishonest about why she voted “no” on border crisis funding. Her real reasons are more political in nature than anything else.

As Rep. Dan Crenshaw made clear last week in comments regarding the Democratic position on illegal immigration, it’s ultimately about open borders:

“What they really want is no enforcement, this is the crux of it. They don’t talk about what the actual problem is which is tens of thousands of people coming across and overwhelming our system,” Crenshaw added. “And then they have to answer the question, should we have a system at all? And they say no. Well what is the point of even having a border? Why even have custom agents at airports if we are not going to enforce any kind of management over who comes in and out of our country? They don’t want to answer these tough questions because in the end they want open borders.”

Bingo.

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— Based in North Carolina, Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter. –