The border is secure. It's more secure than ever. It's so, so secure.
Democrats from the White House, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have repeated that chorus over the years, but the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border has seen more than 50,000 children caught crossing it just since October. Undocumented immigrants have been sent to states like Oklahoma and Nebraska without warning. President Obama, fiercely criticized for attending fundraisers last week rather than visiting the border, has an approval rating of just 28 percent on the subject.
Yet President Obama declared in 2011 his administration had solidified the border during an address in El Paso, Texas, advocating for immigration reform.
"We have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible," he said, later mocking Republicans in his usual exaggerated manner by saying they would next want a moat with alligators.
Then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano insisted on several occasions the U.S. had secured it better than ever before, and such Texas Democrats as Rep. Beto O'Rourke and Rep. Marc Veasey were emboldened to mimic the line in 2013.
Even in recent weeks as the crisis has made national headlines, Sens. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) and Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.) declared the border is secure, as did Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) on Face the Nation. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas), never one to shy away from propping up the White House, managed to say it was "under control."