Dave McCormick, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, records a video along the U.S.-Mexico border after receiving a briefing from officials, in Yuma, Arizona, on May 18, 2024. (Dave McCormick Senate campaign )
McCormick, in an interview Monday morning on Fox News' "Fox and Friends," took aim at President Biden, charging that the situation at the southern border is "a leadership failure that you just can’t believe."
"I’m on the border at 2 a.m. and about 50 illegal migrants walk across the border. In that group that I saw there’s five or six military-aged men from Syria and there’s a handful of Chinese nationals, just when I was there at 2 in the morning," McCormick recollected.
McCormick argued that it's "a killer on two levels… the cartels are not just in the drug business, they’re in the human trafficking business."
REPUBLICANS CLAIM CASEY'S SHIFTED HIS STANCE ON BORDER CRISIS
Illegal immigration and border security have long been top of mind for Republican voters, and GOP leaders for over three years have heavily criticized Biden and his administration over the surge in migrant crossings, as well as the smuggling of deadly fentanyl, across the border. The president's approval rating on handling the border and immigration remains deeply underwater.
The issue is front and center not only in the rematch between Biden and former President Trump, but it's also in the spotlight in this year's battle for the Senate majority.
McCormick returned to Pennsylvania from his trip to the border on Sunday, as Schumer in a letter to fellow senators wrote, "We are hopeful this bipartisan proposal will bring serious-minded Republicans back to the table to advance this bipartisan solution for our border."
Sen. Bob Casey leaves the U.S. Capitol after a vote on April 18, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Casey has been a leading voice among Senate Democrats in recent months in urging more action from the White House to deal with the immigration and fentanyl crisis at the southern border.
"In order to meaningfully address the fentanyl crisis, law enforcement officers at our Nation’s borders must be equipped to combat the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs," Casey and 16 of his Senate colleagues wrote earlier this year in a letter to Biden. "We must also support the law enforcement agencies that are investigating these smuggling and trafficking crimes and working to disrupt the transnational criminal networks that threaten our country and our communities."
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Dave McCormick greets supporters at the Indigo Hotel during a primary election night event on May 17, 2022, in Pittsburgh. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
But the Senate GOP's campaign arm, pointing to Casey's voting record in the Senate, has argued that he pushed certain immigration fixes during election years and voted against them in off years – a characterization Casey's office disputes.
In a statement earlier this year to Fox News Digital, Maddy McDaniel, communications director for Bob Casey for Senate, said, "Casey has a long record of working to strengthen border security and passing bipartisan legislation to combat fentanyl smuggling across the border."
McDaniel also charged that "McCormick refused to support a bipartisan bill that was called the ‘toughest border and immigration law in modern history,’ was supported by border patrol and would have cracked down on fentanyl trafficking – that’s why Pennsylvanians know McCormick can’t be trusted."
Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report
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