Republican Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty decried the Department of Homeland Security’s response to the surges of illegal migrants attempting to cross into the United States, saying that the effects of the border crisis “are killing our kids here in Tennessee.”

Hagerty made the remarks during an interview on Thursday, where he discussed the future of Biden’s signature Build Back Better bill and the American response to China’s treatment of the Uyghurs.

He praised Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio for leading the charge to block goods made with forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang from being imported into the United States. Rubio’s bipartisan bill was signed by President Biden on Thursday.

“We’re already reaching out to Secretary [Gina] Raimondo at the Commerce Department to put those entities on her entities list. These companies that have actually been misusing this type of labor, violating these rules, and not allow American companies to work with those entities,” Hagerty said.

The senator also claimed that Tennessee was experiencing the impact of the border crisis, claiming that the administration has “been doing its best to hide it.”