The situation at our southern border is a national security threat, a humanitarian tragedy, and a failure of basic government responsibility. We must take control of our border, stop the massive smuggling of dangerous substances — especially fentanyl, which kills 70,000 Americans a year – and humanely deal with the vastly expanded waves of unknown and unscreened people illegally entering our country.
The southern border has always been a problem. Still, recent campaign promises (by the Biden Administration) of liberalized border policies drew a massive and ongoing surge of hundreds of thousands monthly to the United States, and inspired thousands of others to send their unaccompanied children.
There were an estimated 1.3 million illegal crossings in 2022, and 2023 numbers are up even higher. Our overworked border agents have caught people from more than 160 countries crossing illegally.
Most alarmingly, Customs and Border Protection statistics show a recent 400% increase in unaccompanied minors. Media reports indicate this has coincided with the tragic growth of illegal child labor in the U.S. It is likely, and horrifying, that thousands of unaccompanied child migrants released into the U.S. have been trafficked into forced labor.
These numbers have overwhelmed the border towns and states, drained their resources and filled their streets with suffering and oftentimes desperate individuals. And the chaos at the border serves as a distraction and shield for the Mexican cartels smuggling killer drugs into the States.
Drug cartels are always looking for lower cost and higher potency drugs to bring here, and they have found it in fentanyl. Fentanyl is a highly powerful and supremely cheap synthetic opioid, 50 times stronger than heroin. Most illegal fentanyl is formed, by Mexico-based cartels, into counterfeit pills made to look like other less powerful but more expensive medications. In fact, many deaths due to fentanyl are more properly considered poisoning rather than overdose. The rate of deaths involving fentanyl have more than tripled since 2016. Fentanyl poisoning is likely the leading cause of death among Americans 18-45; worse than heart disease, cancer, homicide, or other accidents.
It is widely known that the cartels import the stock chemicals for fentanyl, and sometimes the machines and technical expertise for production, from China. Mexican president López Obrador has even asked China to help stop shipments of chemicals that Mexican cartels import from China.
We need a multi-pronged approach to securing our border, slowing the drugs flowing through our streets and killing our citizens, and stopping the humanitarian nightmare of destitute immigrants and exploited children. We must make it clear that our borders are not open. America respects, encourages, and benefits from legal immigrants, and they are welcome. Illegal immigration is not.
Border security must be increased. More enforcement and more personnel are needed immediately. We must acknowledge the public security and public health crisis along our southern border, and treat it as such. We must use the economic security tools at our disposal to fight the financing and trade in fentanyl precursor chemicals. We need to work internally to cut the demand for both illegal migrant labor and illegal drugs. Once we have our border secure, we can make meaningful improvements to provide for legal immigrants and needed temporary workers.
The tragedy at our southern border is not inevitable. It is the result of terrible policies from Washington DC, and it can be fixed.