US Politics

Sen. Kelly Calls Biden Border Management 'Bad Job' in Sunday Interview

A sitting Democratic senator's public break with his own party's former president on border policy illustrates the ongoing internal debate among Democrats over immigration enforcement ahead of the...

The Congressional Times · June 28, 2026

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) stated on Sunday that the Biden administration did a 'bad job' at the southern border and created a 'crisis' through policies that permitted undocumented immigrants to enter the country legally, according to a report published by The Hill on June 28, 2026. Kelly indicated he felt able to voice these criticisms without fear of reprisal from within the Democratic Party.

Kelly's remarks represent a continuation of positions he has previously staked out on immigration enforcement. Arizona shares approximately 370 miles of border with Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection geographic records, making border management a consistent policy and political concern for the state's elected officials regardless of party.

Kelly did not specify in the reported remarks which particular Biden-era policies he held responsible for the conditions he described. The specific regulatory or executive actions he was referencing were not identified in the source reporting. A review of U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounter data published on CBP.gov would provide the numerical record of border crossings during the Biden administration for comparison against prior and subsequent periods.

Kelly is not up for re-election until 2028, according to the U.S. Senate's official election schedule. His stated willingness to publicly diverge from former President Biden's record does not carry an immediate electoral trigger for his own seat, though its effect on Arizona Democratic Party dynamics and potential primary considerations remains unknown. Party fundraising records filed with the Federal Election Commission would reflect whether such statements correlate with changes in donor activity, but no such analysis has been conducted in the available source material.

What remains unknown is the full policy context of Kelly's critique — specifically which Biden administration regulations, executive orders, or enforcement guidance he considers responsible for the conditions he described. The relevant public records that would answer this are the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Register filings from 2021 through 2025 and CBP's monthly Nationwide Encounters dataset, both of which are publicly accessible.

We Follow the Data, Not the Narrative

The Congressional Times exists because public records are public — and the analysis built from them should not be exclusive to those who can afford $60,000-a-year intelligence subscriptions.

Every story published in The Congressional Times is sourced to a verifiable public record: a court filing, a Senate lobbying disclosure, an FEC contribution record, a USASpending contract, or a verified news report. We state our sources inline. We show our math. When we are wrong, we say so publicly.

We do not editorialize in news coverage. We do not use loaded language. Both political parties are held to identical standards.

The Follow the Money investigations are the heart of this publication. Each begins with Gab-E Political Intelligence running against 10+ million government records before a single word of editorial is written.

How We Source, Verify, and Correct Our Work

Every factual claim in a Congressional Times story is checked against a primary source: a government filing, a court record, a direct quote, before publication. When a claim can't be verified or doesn't hold up as originally reported, we drop it or reframe it. We do not publish disputed claims as settled fact.

When we get it wrong: we correct the story directly, note the correction and date at the bottom of the piece, and update the record. We do not quietly edit and move on.

Bylines: stories with a named byline are written and fact-checked by that person. Stories without a byline are sourced from Gab-E Political Intelligence, our automated research platform, and are labeled as such.

Ownership: The Congressional Times is published by Gab-E Holdings LLC. Gab-E, our intelligence platform, powers our sourcing and research pipeline.

Corrections or concerns: support@gab-e.com