PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry's race against Democrat Janelle Stelson got underway in earnest this week, after the latter earned her party's nomination to represent the 10th Congressional District.
FOX43 spoke with both candidates this week on their positions on some of the biggest topics heading into November, including the economy, abortion, border security and American support for Israel and Ukraine.
The issue of the state of the southern border has spread beyond the border states, with The United States Customs and Border Protection reporting more than 300,000 encounters with both asylum seekers and those looking to cross illegally in March, marking an all-time record for a month.
A bipartisan group of senators, led in part by Oklahoma Republican James Lankford and Arizona Independent Kyrsten Sinema, unveiled a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
The bill included provisions such as ending the policy of “catch and release” for migrants, hiring more border patrol officers and giving the Department of Homeland Security the power to decide whether to close the border when the number of law enforcement encounters average 4,000 over one week, with the border automatically closing at 5,000.
Opposition from former president Donald Trump, as well as from House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, helped lead to the bill’s defeat in the Senate.
Rep. Scott Perry was among the Republicans who opposed the bill, saying that any threshold of law enforcement encounters to secure the border is essentially an invitation to cross.
“It didn't do anything to secure the border,” the six-term incumbent Perry said. “That's why they left, and that's why Democrats support that bill. It actually enshrined in law letting thousands of people daily into the country illegally. How is that solving the problem?”
Stelson, a former WGAL News anchor, says Republicans like Perry have turned border security into a partisan issue, and that the compromise should have passed in order to make some progress at the border.
“This is not a partisan issue to me,” Stelson said. “I think we need to reach across the aisle and accomplish one of our biggest goals, which is securing the border. This is a big problem. It's been a problem for a long time. Everybody has been botching it. So let's work together and get it solved.”
With concerns growing about drug trafficking and the lack of legal asylum seekers being processed, Stelson says more compromise is needed to solve the problem, while Perry says the Democrats need to step up in order to do so.
“Let's not take a partisan approach and say, ‘Well, that'd be good for the dems, or that'd be good for the Republicans,’” Stelson said. “That's not okay. We're Americans above being a Democrat or Republican.”
“We need the left and the Democrats to come on seriously about securing the border and stopping the fentanyl, stopping the crime rates from rising and stopping the American citizens from having to pay for these things for which they can't afford and increasing our national debt,” Perry said.
The last day to register to vote before the November General Election is October 21.