President Donald Trump is headed to the border on Thursday to explain why 800,000 federal employees won’t be getting paid this week ... or possibly for years.

It strikes me that now might be a very good time for Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Martha McSally to speak up.

Arizona’s senators have long led the way in search of answers to illegal immigration and border security — even when the answers they offered hurt them politically.

Sinema and McSally may be new to the Senate, but they are not new to Congress, or to the issue. So as the government enters its third week of a partial shutdown, where are you, senators?

What does effective security look like?

Turns out I’m not the only one wondering. Cue Benjamin, a reader who emailed me on Monday after he heard that Trump was planning to visit the border.

“Wouldn’t it be a great thing if our two new senators got together and told everyone, including Washington, what Arizona needs for effective border security?” he wrote.

In fact, it would be an exceedingly great thing for Sinema and McSally, two border state senators from opposing parties, to speak out on our present debacle.

To explain what needs to happen on the U.S.-Mexico border and how far they are willing to go to get it.

Questions McSally, Sinema should answer

Sen. McSally, do you support holding 800,000 federal employees hostage to get $5.6 billion for a wall? Among them, the backlogged immigration courts and e-Verify, the Department of Homeland Security program that actually deters illegal immigration by allowing employers to determine if applicants are eligible to work in the U.S.?

If so, I’d like to know why — beyond political talking points — a 1,933-mile wall would be the single most effective way to secure the border. If you don’t support this partial government shutdown, I’d like to know that, too.

Sen. Sinema, you’ve said you oppose government shutdowns and “do not think there’s ever a time when it’s appropriate to shut down the government over any demand.”

Yet Democrats have vowed to give Trump not one dime for his wall. Do you stand with your party? What, specifically, would you support to end this political standoff and assure 800,000 American families that they won’t wind up on the streets?

While you're at it, remind Trump that ...

While you’re at it, maybe both of you senators could remind Trump that border crossings are actually down and that nearly half of the people who are here illegally didn’t cross over the 1,933-mile border to get here. They overstayed their visas.

Maybe you could explain that despite what Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says, great hordes of terrorists aren’t pouring over the border.

“We know that, roughly, nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally, and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is at our southern border,” Sanders told Fox News’ Chris Wallace over the weekend.

Wallace quickly countered that the State Department has found “no credible evidence” of terrorists crossing the southern border. That most are, in fact, nabbed at airports. Even the Fox people are calling B.S.

This is a great time to work together

Sen. McSally, after your appointment you vowed to work with Kyrsten Sinema for the good of the state, whose No. 1 trading partner, by the way, is Mexico. Now would be a good time to get to work on that vow.

Sen. Sinema, during the election you positioned yourself as an independent voice, one not beholden to the Democratic Party. Now would be a good time to show us that you meant it.

A good time, in fact, for both of you to be leaders.

Because there is one crisis upon which we should be able to agree: 800,000 American workers won't be getting paid this week or in the foreseeable future. This, because of a president afraid of looking foolish and an opposing party afraid of allowing him any semblance of a win.

Yet thus far, all I hear from our senators is silence.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

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