Last week, I visited the southern border to meet with Border Patrol agents and review our national security needs. I heard directly from these brave men and women on the front lines about what they need to do their jobs.

I got a firsthand look at the security and humanitarian crisis at the southern border.

The agents that I talked to shared about the problems and increasing danger they have faced while protecting our border. My conclusion is that not only the agents but our country needs the assets that President Donald Trump has called for.

The president requested $5.7 billion to strengthen weak points in the southern border wall and build approximately 234 miles of new sections.

In reality, the wall that is so often argued about and politicized is only part of the solution the president and the subject matter experts are the Department of Homeland Security have proposed.

Based on my conversation with Border Patrol agents, more personnel and technology is needed as well. They need the latest technology like drones, sensors and cameras. They also simply need more manpower, not only more agents to physically patrol but more judges to hear cases and more caseworkers to process requests faster. The asylum backlog is an astounding 800,000 cases.

In recent months, nearly 2,000 people each day have attempted to cross the border illegally. Effective border security means reeling back this number by providing an efficient and legal immigration policy — not only protecting those seeking to enter but our citizens as well. In the last two months, Border Patrol has apprehended roughly 140,000 illegal immigrants on the southwest border, an increase of 86 percent over the same period last year.

I applaud President Trump for doing everything that he can to solve these problems and for ending the shutdown. Unfortunately, House Democrats rejected every negotiation and deal that the president proposed the past month, which shouldn’t surprise us anymore.

In fact, Democrats did not make a single legitimate counteroffer to the president’s proposals. (Nancy Pelosi did offer $1 as a joke.)

For 35 days, the partial government shutdown showed that liberals in Washington placed their personal differences with the president over and above securing our border and paying our federal workers. President Trump has shown tremendous leadership in reopening the government until Feb. 15. We will see if Speaker Pelosi will now get serious.

It is long past time for Democrats to abandon their partisan political agenda and begin to work with Republicans to secure our border and end the humanitarian crisis we are facing. I encourage Democrats to come to the negotiating table. The American people are serious about national security. I hear from my constituents daily, and many have told me to stand strong on border security.

And to those government employees in my district who were furloughed and fear another gap in their pay: I will do everything I can to ensure you do not go without pay again. If so, I will once again ask that my pay be withheld.

Securing our nation’s borders should not be a partisan issue — yet that is what Democrats have made it.

I will continue to fight for border security in Washington, and I encourage you to call your senators and urge them to do the same.

Doug Lamborn represents Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District and serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

Doug Lamborn