Interest in President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address dwindled Tuesday night as the annual event pulled the second-smallest audience in at least 30 years, according to a Wednesday report by the Nielsen company.

The report said an estimated 27.3 million people tuned into a television network for the president’s address, which was down nearly 28% from the 38.2 million who watched last year.

Since 1993, the only audience smaller than Tuesday nights was recorded in 2021 when 26.9 million people watched Biden address Congress on April 28. 

The speech, was delivered unusually late due to precautions associated with the coronavirus pandemic, was not officially a State of the Union address since he had just taken office a few months earlier.

The 2023 address was carried live on 16 television networks. Fox News Channel brought the speech’s largest audience with 4.69 million viewers, while FOX’s broadcast network contributed 1.66 million viewers, Nielsen reported.

Viewership on the remaining national networks was as follows: ABC with 4.41 million, NBC with 3.78 million, CBS with 3.64 million, MSNBC with 3.55 million and CNN with 2.4 million.

A majority of the people (73%) who watched Tuesday’s speech were 55 and older, according to Nielsen. Only 5% of the audience were young adults under age 35.

Nielsen did not have figures available from before President Bill Clinton’s first address to Congress in 1993, which reached 66.9 million people – an impressive audience considering the limited entertainment options.

Biden’s second State of the Union address, which acted as a soft launch for a 2024 presidential bid, included statements about the economy, gun violence, police brutality in light of Tyre Nichols’ death, health care, the workforce and more.

The speech was met with strong reactions from politicians as Democrats cheered his calls to ban ‘assault weapons’ and codify Roe v. Wade, and Republicans booed his comments on the border and Social Security.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

As he aims to expand the Republican majority in the House of Representatives in next year’s elections, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is off to a fast start when it comes to building a formidable war chest.

McCarthy hauled in a record $12 million for House Republicans on Wednesday night as he headlined his first major fundraiser of the 2024 election cycle. 

The function held at the Conrad Hotel in the nation’s capital and in honor of McCarthy’s hard-fought ascension last month to the speaker’s chair, attracted nearly everyone from House GOP leadership and committee chairs. It was hosted by longtime McCarthy friend and ally and veteran lobbyist Jeff Miller.

The speaker, who’s known as one of the most prolific fundraisers in Washington D.C., personally hauled in $150 million last cycle to help Republicans win back the House majority. 

‘No one has ever argued that I don’t work hard, and I’ll continue to work hard to get the message out,’ McCarthy told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview just before the fundraiser when asked about his fundraising goals in the new cycle.

Republicans controlled the House majority for eight years before the Democrats won back the chamber in the 2018 midterms. But two years ago in the 2020 elections, the GOP defied expectations and took a big bite out of Democrats’ majority. 

The GOP captured the majority in November’s elections, but hopes of a red wave never materialized, and the party is holding onto a fragile 222-212 majority, with a heavily blue seat currently vacant. That means Democrats will likely need a net gain of just five seats to win back control of the chamber next year.

‘I want to grow the number of Republicans in the House to make sure that policy becomes law,’ McCarthy emphasized as he discussed his 2024 goals.

As part of that goal, McCarthy last week launched a joint-fundraising committee to help 30 incumbent House Republicans who face potentially challenging re-elections next year. The news was reported first by Fox News.

Looking back to November’s results, McCarthy acknowledged that ‘there are number of places where we could have done better.’ Pointing to disappointing GOP results in some statewide races in two key battlegrounds, McCarthy said that ‘the top of the ticket hurt us in Pennsylvania and Michigan.’

But he highlighted that the GOP won the popular vote in House races last November by 3%, up from the previous midterm elections.

‘We won in California. We won in New York. In Oregon. We have grown this party and actually expanded this party in seats that we haven’t had before,’ McCarthy spotlighted. ‘We’re winning seats that [President] Biden won by 10 points. So I think the role model is do what you’ve done well, and continue. That means finding some of the very best candidates, deliver your message like the Commitment to America and follow through with it.’

The Cook Political Report, a top non-partisan political handicapper, last week gave the GOP a slight edge over the Democrats as it released its first ratings for the 2024 landscape, with 10 Democratic held seats listed as toss-ups, compared to nine for the Republicans.

‘The advantage goes to Republicans in the next election cycle for the House,’ McCarthy said as he referenced the Cook Report ratings.

Pointing to bills House Republicans have already passed — from repealing the nearly $80 billion in IRS funding approved last year by Democrats, to a new select committee to get tough on China, McCarthy touted that ‘a lot of people like what they see happening.’ 

And looking ahead to the 2024 elections, he said ‘I know we’ll gain seats with the policies we’re working on.’

Democrats disagree.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, the new chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Fox News Digital in an interview on Tuesday that Republicans ‘are not at all focused on addressing the issues of our families. They’re focused on politics and ideology.’

DelBene argued that the House GOP push to investigate the Biden’s administration and whether Hunter Biden tried to influence his father’s politics through business deals in China and Ukraine would not resonate with voters.

Asked about the DCCC chair’s criticisms, the Speaker that while House Republicans will push for a strong economy, energy independence, anti-crime measures, border security and a parents bill of rights, they also ‘want a government that’s held accountable and the reason that you’re seeing that is Democrats never did.’

‘The last DCCC chair said the exact type of thing, and he lost his seat,’ McCarthy added, referencing former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the 2022 cycle DCCC chair who lost his re-election in November.

A Democratic lawmaker in Arkansas rallied to defend newly-elected Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders amid criticism from California Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

Taking to Twitter, Newsom attempted to criticize Sanders for verbally being anti-crime while governing a state that ‘has one of the highest murder rates.’ 

‘While @SarahHuckabee touts public safety, here is what she skips over: Arkansas has one of the highest murder rates in the nation,’ the California governor tweeted.

In a swift response, Arkansas state representative Andrew Collins countered: ‘1. She’s been Governor a month. 2. There are drivers of crime like poverty, lack of education, and lack of opportunity, that Arkansas needs to fix in order to reduce violent crime. They’re generational. And they aren’t unique to Arkansas. 3. Don’t trash my state.’

Collins represents District 73, which includes Riverdale, Pleasant Valley and Pinnacle.

Newsom’s criticism came after Gov. Sanders gave the Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. 

Sanders said the country was at a tipping point where Americans were faced with a choice ‘between normal or crazy.’

‘Being a mom to three young children taught me not to believe every story I hear. So forgive me for not believing much of anything I heard tonight from President Biden. From out-of-control inflation and violent crime to the dangerous border crisis and threat from China, Biden and the Democrats have failed you,’ Sanders said.

‘The choice is between normal or crazy,’ she added. ‘It is time for a new generation of Republican leadership.’

‘Democrats want to rule us with more government control, but that is not who we are,’ she also said. ‘It’s time for a change.’

The Republican governor, who previously served as White House secretary in the Trump administration, also contrasted Biden’s age to her own and said he surrendered ‘his presidency’ to more progressive voices in his party.

‘At 40, I’m the youngest governor in the country. At 80, he’s the oldest president in American history.  I’m the first woman to lead my state. He’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is,’ Sanders said.

‘In the radical left’s America, Washington taxes you and lights your hard-earned money on fire, but you get crushed with high gas prices, empty grocery shelves, and our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race, but not to love one another or our great country,’ she continued.

The following day, Sanders unveiled a bill that proposed major overhauls to the state’s education system, including the elimination of Critical Race Theory from schools’ curriculums, offering school choice, and raising teacher minimum wages to $50,000 per year.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Arkansas ranks 5th in homicide mortality rate while California ranks 26th. The ranking is from 2020, the most recent year that data is available.

The same data set shows, however, that California is ranked #1 in total murders (2,368 deaths) while Arkansas falls to 22nd (654).

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One Wednesday, addressing questions about President Biden’s State of the Union address.

Jean-Pierre was asked about a ‘flash point’ in the speech during which Republicans heckled Biden over his claim that many Republicans are seeking to end Medicare and Social Security.

Jean-Pierre said the White House stands by Biden’s address and that GOP lawmakers attempt to ‘speak out of both sides of their mouths’ on the issue.

‘Just a couple of things that I just want to lay out, and we want to be very real here because there are some facts that we have seen the last couple of years — not even the last couple of months — which is members of the Republican caucus have repeatedly for many, many years tried to cut Medicare and Social Security, to privatize it, raise the retirement age,’ the press secretary said.

‘They had actually voted on that and put it on the chopping block. That’s what we’ve seen them do for years. And they always tried to speak out of both sides of their mouths.’

Jean-Pierre went on to accuse specific Republicans of duplicity on the issue, calling out Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and claiming Biden put the GOP ‘on defense.’

‘That’s what they’ve done, trying to cut these programs Americans pay into their entire lives when they think they can get away with it,’ the press secretary continued. ‘That’s what we’re talking about here. Mike Lee, who protested last night. But there is literally video … saying he wants to tear Medicare and Social Security out by the roots. This is something that Mike Lee said.’

Video from February 2010 shows Sen. Mike Lee on the campaign trail telling an audience, ‘It will be my objective to phase out Social Security. To pull it out by the roots and get rid of it.’

Lee’s office disputed Jean-Pierre’s framing of the 2010 clip in a statement to Fox News. 

‘In that address and in countless other discussions on the topic, Sen. Lee has reiterated his belief that we have a moral obligation to honor commitments made to Social Security recipients,’ the statement said. ‘He supports these commitments as strongly now as he did when he first entered the Senate.’

In the same 2010 video, Lee said, ‘Those who are current beneficiaries, those who have retired and are currently receiving those benefits — their benefits have to be left untouched, unchanged.’

Lee went on to say that ‘those who will retire in the next few years’ would also need to be assured of their benefits.

After Lee, Jean-Pierre pivoted to Johnson, saying, ‘We are headed to Wisconsin, as I just mentioned, home of Sen. Ron Johnson — which you heard the president talk about a lot during the midterms — who authored a bill to put these programs on the chopping blocks in Congress and in Congress every single year. That’s what he said.’

In August 2022, Johnson suggested that Social Security and Medicare should no longer exist as federal entitlement programs. Johnson specified that he believed the programs should instead be approved annually as discretionary spending. 

‘If you qualify for the entitlement, you just get it no matter what the cost,’ Johnson said at the time. ‘And our problem in this country is that more than 70% of our federal budget, of our federal spending, is all mandatory spending. It’s on automatic pilot. It never, you just don’t do proper oversight. You don’t get in there and fix the programs going bankrupt.’

In an interview after the comment, Johnson denied wanting to end Social Security or Medicare.

Johnson told Fox Digital in an exclusive statement on Wednesday, ‘President Biden is lying about me. He lied last night, and he lied again today. I never suggested putting Medicare & Social Security on the chopping block. In fact, it was Joe Biden himself who suggested freezing these programs.’

‘In 1975, while Biden was serving in the Senate, he put forward a bill requiring all federal programs to sunset after four years,’ he continued. ‘Biden doubled down on his legislation in the 1990s, saying that his bill would affect Social Security.’

‘I want to save these programs. I have simply pointed out the greatest threat to these programs is out of control debt and deficits. We need a process to prioritize spending and decease our deficits,’ he concluded.

Indiana lawmakers are considering a new bill that would prohibit picketing or protesting outside someone’s home with the intention to harass.

The bill would establish a new offense known as ‘residential harassment,’ a Class C felony that would apply to all homes, regardless of whether they belong to elected officials.

‘The intent of the bill, which has come to me from the Prosecuting Attorneys Council, is to protect the sanctity of our private residence … to prevent people from picketing and intending to harass people in their homes,’ Republican state Sen. Scott Baldwin, who authored the bill, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Supporters of the bill presented their case to the Senate Corrections Committee Tuesday, stating it would provide law enforcement with a way to safeguard the privacy of people’s homes, particularly in the face of rising politically motivated violence.

State senators decided to hold the bill before moving it forward.

The proposed law comes after repeated protests at the homes of Supreme Court justices and an attack against former Speaker of the House Nancy’s Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi.

‘I never thought I’d see that in my lifetime,’ Democratic state Sen. Greg Taylor said of the recent attack against Pelosi, according to the outlet. ‘I’m going to support the bill, but I don’t think it’s going to do anything to help with what we’re trying to do.’

Those who oppose the law claim the protections it would carve out already exist. State Sen. Aaron Freeman of Indianapolis, a Republican, claimed that the Frisby v. Schultz decision by the Supreme Court in 1988 already established the legality of ordinances restricting demonstrations in residential areas.

Frisby v. Schultz centered around a group of pro-life activists who held a protest outside the home of a doctor who offered abortion services, which led the city of Brookfield, Wisconsin, to institute a ban on picketing in front of homes. The Supreme Court sided with city lawmakers after protesters took the city to court.

Zach Stock, who serves as legislative counsel for the Indiana Public Defender Council, told the outlet that police are already empowered to arrest someone for the activity the new bill would outlaw.

‘I think that prosecutors and judges have the tools — juries have the tools — to engage in that case-by-case analysis right now,’ Stock said. ‘We’re not defending anybody’s right to harass people.’

State Sen. Liz Brown, a Republican from Fort Wayne, claimed she has been harassed at her own home.

‘I don’t think they should come to our homes; I’ve had that happen to me,’ she said. ‘They didn’t say a word, but I found it very intimidating and harassing.

Colorado Democrat Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday refused to answer questions from House lawmakers on whether biological boys should be allowed to play sports with biological girls and how old students should be before teachers talk to them about gender transitioning.

Polis appeared at a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing to talk about the state of education, and he was asked by Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., about whether boys who identify as girls should be allowed to play sports with girls in elementary, middle and high school.

‘I have three daughters, you have a daughter,’ Banks said to Polis. ‘Don’t you think … it’s unfair that biological boys are allowed to compete against biological girls in sports?’

‘My daughter is 8 years old, she plays in little league baseball in Boulder, Colorado, and it’s a coed league,’ Polis said. ‘It’s probably about 10% girls, about 90% boys, and she’s every bit as competitive as them.’

‘Pretty soon your 8-year-old will be 15, 16, and I wonder how you’ll feel at that point,’ Banks said after Polis declined to answer directly. Banks’ critique came even after he praised Polis for his support of charter schools in Colorado.

Virginia Gentles, director of the Education Freedom Center at the Independent Women’s Forum, was another witness at the hearing, and she said allowing boys to play alongside girls is ‘unfair and discriminatory.’

‘Congressman Greg Steube has introduced the ‘Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act,’ which will end the practice of allowing biological males to take awards, roster spots, scholarships or spots at a school from female athletes,’ she said, referencing the Florida Republican.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., said emails that her office has shows teachers were talking about gender ideology with 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds. She asked Polis several times whether it’s appropriate for adult teachers to talk about that subject with young students, but Polis deflected each time.

‘These are not part of our state standards or curriculum around health or around social studies,’ he said, stopping short of saying whether he thinks it’s appropriate.

‘What’s important [is] that the teachers, the principals meet the needs of all learners, all students, no matter who they are, no matter how they identify, they need to learn math, reading and writing,’ Polis added.

When pressed again for a specific answer on whether it’s appropriate to teach young kids about gender ideology, Polis again said doing so is not part of the state’s education plan.

‘I can assure you that it’s not part of our state’s standards, it’s certainly not part of our age-appropriate health standards, nor is it part of our social studies standards to have that as part of the curriculum at that age,’ he said.

Gentles said in her written remarks that parents are upset that any school funding is going toward issues like gender identity and anti-racism education.

‘Federal, state and local policies that embrace and enforce gender and other divisive ideologies in the K-12 education system pressure students to define themselves by their racial, sexual and gender identity,’ she said. ‘Polls consistently reveal that most people don’t want children to be bombarded with activist-drafted materials, books and lessons pushing radical gender ideology.’

The White House has tripled down on a claim President Biden made during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, that congressional Republicans want to slash several programs including Social Security and Medicare.

In a press release early Thursday morning, the White House said Biden will be visiting Tampa, Florida, later in the day where he will contrast ‘his commitment to protecting and strengthening Medicare and Social Security and lowering prescription drug prices, with Congressional Republicans’ plans to cut these programs.’

‘President Biden has taken action to strengthen Medicare and protect Social Security – bedrock programs that Americans have paid into and that tens of millions of seniors depend on to support their livelihoods. Congressional Republicans, however, have a different record,’ the White House’s statement read.

It continued: ‘For years, Republican Members of Congress have repeatedly tried to cut Medicare and Social Security, move toward privatizing one or both programs, and raise the Social Security retirement age and Medicare eligibility age. And just last week, House Republicans introduced legislation to repeal President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which would give tens of billions of dollars in subsidies back to Big Pharma, raise seniors’ prescription drug prices, and raise taxes on an estimated 14.5 million people – all while increasing the deficit.’

The press release came after President Biden claimed during Tuesday’s State of the Union address that Republicans were trying to slash the key programs.

‘In the last two years, my administration has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion — the largest deficit reduction in American history,’ Biden said at the Capitol Tuesday, while contrasting his spending with the Trump administration. ‘Those are the facts. Check it out.’

These ‘facts’ have since been labeled as ‘false’ and ‘needs context’ by fact-checkers.  

He added: ‘Some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage unless I agree to their economic plans. All of you at home should know what those plans are.’

‘Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,’ Biden claimed as he was drowned out by Republicans booing him. ‘That means if Congress doesn’t vote to keep them, those programs will go away.’

The president appeared to know the line was more theatrics than facts as he acknowledged Congress was in agreement to leave Social Security and Medicare untouched.

‘I’m not saying it’s a majority of you. I don’t even think it’s even a significant – but it’s being proposed by individuals,’ he said. ‘I’m politely not naming them, but it’s being proposed by some of you.’

‘Anyone who doubts it, contact my office and I will give you a copy of the proposal,’ Biden continued.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also defended the remarks during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Wednesday.

This after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., screamed out ‘liar’ during the president’s speech.

Others joined in on social media during and after Biden’s speech.

‘The President has devolved into just lying shamelessly about GOP positions to frighten seniors citizens into voting for him,’ Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, tweeted.

The White House statement appeared to offer some defense to Biden’s claim, noting Republicans like Sens. Mike Lee and John Thune have criticized the programs.

STATE OF THE UNION: BIDEN LAYS OUT ECONOMIC PLAN, CALLS FOR BIPARTISANSHIP BUT REPEATEDLY CHIDES REPUBLICANS

The statement highlighted Sen. Lee, R-UT, said in Feb. 2010: ‘One thing that you probably haven’t ever heard from a politician: it will be my objective to phase out Social Security. To pull it up by the roots, and get rid of it.’

The statement also highlighted a plan from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., that would ‘put Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security on the chopping block every five years, which would put the health and economic security of 63 million Medicare beneficiaries, 69 million Medicaid beneficiaries and 65 million Social Security beneficiaries at risk.’

Biden’s accusation is a talking point that has been debunked by fact-checkers before. His claim, and the White House’s defense, that ‘some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset’ is based on a legislative agenda released by Scott last year.

He proposed that ‘all federal legislation sunsets in 5 years.’

‘If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,’ Scott said at the time.

His proposal was widely rejected by Republicans and denounced by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The Washington Post and other fact-checkers declared the Democrats’ claim to be ‘false.’

President Biden, when he was serving as a U.S. senator, previously proposed similar legislation.

The White House also criticized the Republican effort to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which is mostly environmental legislation.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

Oregon lawmakers are weighing a bill to officially repeal the residency requirement for patients to seek physician-assisted suicide in the state.

House Bill 2279, which was requested last year by now-former Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, repeals the residency requirement in the Death with Dignity Act and would allow adults from prohibitionist states who are suffering from terminal illnesses to seek physician-assisted suicide in Oregon.

The bill is a result of the settlement of a March 2022 lawsuit filed against Brown and other state officials by ​Dr. Nicholas Gideonse, ​an Oregon physician who claimed the residency requirement violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment. 

As part of the settlement, state agencies agreed to no longer enforce the residency requirement in the Death with Dignity Act, which was enacted in 1997. Oregon HB 2279 would codify the change.

‘House Bill 2279 is an expansion on what is already a dangerous law, couched as a solution to a problem that doesn’t even exist,’ Lois Anderson, the executive director of Oregon Right to Life, told Fox News Digital. 

‘It is little more than the bullying of the Oregon Legislature by former Governor Kate Brown—assisted suicide’s champion—and the courts,’ Anderson said. ‘Our elected officials should be working to improve the lives of Oregonians, not scheming to end the lives of others.’

The bill, which was introduced on Jan. 9 and currently has no legislative sponsors, had a public hearing in the House Behavioral Health and Health Care Committee on Jan. 23. 

Amitai Heller, the senior staff attorney for Compassion & Choices, the non-profit that represented Gideonse in his lawsuit, took time during the hearing ‘to recognize the Attorney General, the Department of Health, the Medical Board and Multnomah County DA, who are willing to expeditiously resolve the lawsuit in order to ensure that no further patients had their care interrupted because of what side of the state border they lived on.’

‘Now the Oregon Legislature has an opportunity to provide clarity and certainty by permanently resolving the issue,’ he said.

Gideonse also spoke at the hearing, lamenting that he couldn’t provide physician-assisted suicide for many of his patients who reside in Southwest Washington.

‘There should not be an artificial barrier that comes between me and my existing patients or future patients who happen to reside out of state,’ he said.

Roger Martin, a lobbyist for the Oregon Catholic Conference, spoke out against the bill at the hearing.

‘Do we really want Oregon to become the suicide leader in the world?’ he asked. 

Brad Dennis, an Oregon resident, also objected to the bill, arguing that the Oregon legislature ‘should be addressing issues that pertain to Oregon citizens and not making rules for the benefit of those living outside of our state.’

‘I’m opposed to creating a tourism death bill. We should not be known as the death magnet of the world,’ he said at the hearing. 

If passed, the bill could have repercussions in more than a half dozen other blue states and Washington, D.C. that have euthanasia laws with residency requirements.

EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is set to introduce a bill making it explicitly illegal for ‘coyotes’ to smuggle immigrants and goods across the U.S. border.

The ‘No Coyote Cash Act,’ cosigned by four other Senate Republicans, would fine coyotes the worth of their transportation at the border and sentence them to up to one year in prison. Illegal immigrants who transport people or goods are also subject to deportation. 

‘Any person who transmits money, property, or any item of value through interstate commerce … shall be fined the value of the transmitted money, property, or item of value, imprisoned not more than year, or both,’ the bill states. 

Coyotes charge upward of $10,000 to smuggle immigrants across the southern border depending on where their country of origin and method of transportation is. The charges have made for a booming business for coyotes as border encounters have hit all-time highs during the Biden administration. The total number of encounters is nearing 5 million, according to U.S. Custom and Border Protection data.

‘President Biden’s failed open border policy continues to incentivize the crisis at our border,’ Rubio told Fox News Digital. ‘This commonsense bill targets one of the root causes of illegal migration. We must ensure those who pay cartels, smugglers and coyotes are convicted for enriching criminals’ pockets through human smuggling.’

The legal provisions in Rubio’s bill would be amended to the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The bill is cosigned by senators Roger Marshall, R-Kan.; Mike Braun, R-Ind.; Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.; and Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Rosemary Jenks, the director of government relations for NumbersUSA, a group that advocates for lower levels of immigration, said Rubio’s bill would close a long-abused loophole in the U.S. immigration system.

‘For too long, the U.S. has looked the other way as individuals paid cartel smugglers to bring their friends and family to the U.S. illegally, which has only led to an increase in chaos at the border and victimization of vulnerable populations,’ Jenks told Fox News Digital.