Arizona Senator Mark Kelly further speak out on Biden’s border executive order

WASHINGTON (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - Arizona Senator Mark Kelly discussed the executive order signed by President Joe Biden Tuesday that tightens security at the southern border.

Speaking outside of the White House, the senator called the order a good step forward in solving the border security crisis.

He also pointed to the impact the crisis is having on his state, saying that Arizona deserves a real solution to the problem at the border.

"This has been a problem that Washington has failed on for decades now. We recently had the opportunity to do something about this through strong, bipartisan legislation. And as we all know, that did not happen. There was a deal that was negotiated with Democrats, Republicans, and with the White House, that fell apart at the last minute because the former president decided that he, uh, he wanted to have this as a campaign issue, and that's incredibly unfortunate.

Now today, the President is going to announce what is a very good step forward in solving the border security part of this situation. And I'm happy to be here today, and what I hope is that we will have a safer situation and operational control over our southern border.

But really what we need is, is legislation from Congress. And I'm going to continue to work on this, because this is important for my state. It's also important for our national security and for immigration policy. We also need comprehensive immigration reform that will benefit our economy.

The last thing you want in any kind of major operation is a chaotic situation where the folks who are in charge, this case, the Border Patrol and CBP, just lose the ability to do their jobs and to do it safely. And that's what this policy gets to. It gets to that point that it's going to allow them without doing what the former president did. It's going to allow them to get to the point where they regain control over what is a difficult situation."

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.)