To watch Senator Capito’s questioning, click here or the image above.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, participated in a hearing today on the State Department’s FY2022 budget request. During the hearing, Senator Capito questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about addressing the ongoing border crisis as well as ransomware attacks on the United States.

HIGHLIGHTS:

ON STATE DEPARTMENT REQUESTING FUNDING FOR NORTHERN TRIANGLE COUNTRIES: “As we know migration from non-Mexican, non-Northern Triangle counties is skyrocketing…Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, Chile, Romania. My question revolves around your budget request because you request $861 [million] eventually going to $4 billion going to the Northern Triangle with the goal of controlling crossings at the southern border. How will this help control the migration we’re seeing from non-northern Triangle countries that we have coming to the southern border? Do you plan to expand this request to other countries as those numbers go up, because they are increasing and I’m sure you’re well aware of that?”

ON NEED FOR ADMINISTRATION TO ADDRESS BORDER CRISIS: “The issues are there are more people…from different countries. It’s costing our country and their countries. We need to find a solution here to crack down on this, because I think the American people, when they think 170,000 people are coming across the border illegally a month is astronomical.”

ON RANSOMWARE ATTACKS: “We’ve obviously seen the one most recently with the colonial pipeline and I’m sure there’s many more we don’t know about. Even one of our local hospitals had a ransomware attack. How are you working with our allies diplomatically on a collective approach to mitigate these ransomware attacks? The DOJ has recently elevated ransomware to the same priority level as terrorism. Will the Department of State also commit similar resources to tackling this issue and ensure that ransomware criminals, wherever they exist, are brought to justice?”

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