This weekend I visited our southern border. President Joe Biden was headed there too for a quick photo-op, his first ever visit to our southern border in a half-century of politics.
I could not help but think about Biden’s previous refusal to visit the crisis he created. I could not help but think about how easy it would be for him to hop on Air Force One at any time during the last two years to see the consequences of his failures firsthand. I could not help but think about the people and communities suffering as a result.
When I landed, I spent time with Rep. Mayra Flores, whose husband is a Border Patrol agent. It is not lost on her that Democrats have voted against hiring more border agents, deporting felons and preventing illegal immigrants convicted of crimes from becoming permanent residents. (RELATED: SPAKOVSKY AND STIMSON: Make No Mistake About It, America’s Border Crisis Is Biden-Made)
When the far-left votes against strengthening the successful Remain in Mexico policy, they are undermining the hard and unforgiving work that our beleaguered Border Patrol agents do on a daily basis.
This wasn’t my first time being there on the ground. In November, I visited McAllen, Texas, alongside Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Our southern border is no joke.
Sadly, President Biden has squandered and destroyed the secure border he inherited from the previous administration. During his first 100 days in office, Biden took more than 94 executive actions on immigration, including halting construction of the border wall.
Actions have consequences. Just look at the numbers. 3.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border since Joe Biden took office. November 2022 was the worst November in Department of Homeland Security history, with over 233,000 illegal immigrants apprehended crossing the border. A staggering 650 million lethal doses of fentanyl were seized at the southern border in November alone.
If a lot of fentanyl is getting seized, it means a lot of fentanyl is coming in. Evil drug cartels are profiting off of Biden’s border crisis: coyotes, smugglers and other criminals are making an estimated $13 billion each year off of human trafficking.
Everything you’ve read about the border is true: it’s unguarded and chaotic. Thousands of illegal immigrants and millions of deadly fentanyl doses make it across on a weekly basis.
Meanwhile, border communities are being overrun as lawlessness spreads from the south on up. California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas get the worst of it. However, we have to remember one simple fact: when you have an open border, every state is a border state.
That’s evidenced by fentanyl becoming the leading cause of death among Americans age 18-45. That statistic doesn’t stop in one community or one state. This is a national problem: young people are dying in droves from coast-to-coast because this failed president refuses to take border security seriously.
It is shameful and dishonest for Biden and his administration to pretend that this isn’t a raging crisis. I doubt that parents who have lost children to this out-of-control wave of drugs are comforted by Biden saying there are “more important things” than the deadly situation at the border.
Thankfully, we don’t have to fight this crisis alone anymore. In November, Americans sent a loud and clear message that they are fed up with one-party Democrat rule by electing a Republican House. Now, under the leadership of Speaker McCarthy, Republicans have the tools to start fixing our southern border.
That means prioritizing border security, cracking down on cartels and supporting both our Border Patrol agents and our police to stem the tide of deadly drugs into our country.
I’ve seen our border crisis firsthand. It is a product of wrong-headed Democrat policies, and it is completely unacceptable.
The work to fix it is already underway thanks to Republican leadership. Every American in every state deserves a southern border that is secure.
Ronna McDaniel is the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.
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