Sen. Roger Marshall: Fentanyl is 'one of the biggest health epidemics' facing the US
Senator Roger Marshall, R-Kan., explains the horrors of the fentanyl epidemic and why we need to label drug cartels as terrorists
"Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong." No, that wasn’t a statement made by President Joe Biden acknowledging his disastrous immigration policies during his trip to the southern border in El Paso, Texas, his first such trip since a drive-by in 2008.
Those words about holding oneself accountable for their mistakes comes from another president, Kansan Dwight D. Eisenhower. No statements like this came from the current president about accepting responsibility for the chaos his policies continue to cause along the border and their dangerous consequences for American citizens.
Throughout our 105-county tour of Kansas and my most recent trip to the southern border, I’ve spoken to the Americans who are paying the price for Biden’s inaction. The price is tragically hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned by fentanyl that was smuggled over the border, along with countless human trafficking victims and a huge uptick in violent crime in our communities.
These concerned citizens, entirely ignored by this administration, are furious. They know Biden’s presidential pit stop was a made-for-TV photo opportunity empty of any solutions to his failing policies, like something straight out of "The Truman Show." And yes, all Americans understand visiting a port-of-entry is a far cry from reality of the situation along the porous Rio Grand River.
BIDEN AVOIDS SECTIONS OF TRUMP-BUILT BORDER WALL DURING TRIP TO EL PASO
This stunt in El Paso was the sad culmination of Biden’s refusal to take full ownership of the crisis he created. He is unlikely to put an end to his administration’s radical open borders policies or halt Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ willful violation of federal immigration law, meaning the immigration, national security, and humanitarian crises along the border will worsen. Using your tax dollars, Biden will funnel millions more illegal aliens into the United States by telling those unlawfully entering from Mexico that they can come to America "legally" if they use a port-of-entry.
All illegal migrants would then need to do is present themselves for inspection, which would initiate a protection claim, instead of current policy that requires asylum seekers to wait at a port-of-entry to be processed. This policy, which incentivizes migrants to cross the border, could double the number of illegal crossings per day. Additionally, Biden wants to parole up to 30,000 aliens a month from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti to reside and work legally in America, nearly all of whom will presumably never return home.
President Joe Biden walks with U.S. Border Patrol agents along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texas, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The plan also includes receiving an additional 20,000 refugees from Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2023 and 2024. All of this so Biden can claim the border is under "control" even though all he did was recategorize these unlawful crossings and parolees as "legal" so they do not count against his administration’s historically high – and politically painful – illegal crossing statistics.
Under the previous administration, our border was more secure and the current crises were not happening. Meanwhile, this administration fails to enforce the laws at our southern border, which is why Congress must pass legislation that returns our country to sane border policies that protect our sovereignty and citizenry, like my bill that directs the federal government to crackdown on the cartels pushing fentanyl into our country and my measure that denies citizenship for illegal immigrants dependent on benefits funded by American taxpayers.
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And, while Secretary Mayorkas has indicated won’t resign his position, Americans do not accept his complacency with his job performance. Should my colleagues in the House of Representatives pass Articles of Impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas for his failure to enforce our immigration laws and protect the American people, I stand ready for his trial in the Senate.
Congress can fight all it wants about overhauling our legal immigration process, but it means nothing without getting operational control of our borders, forcing everyone to go through the legal ports-of-entry, and yes, finishing the wall. Until all that happens, we are just putting our fingers in one broken dike after another while the illegal immigration floodwaters continue to engulf our nation.
Let us all encourage President Biden to take another Eisenhower quote to heart if he hopes to regain the trust of the American public: "A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law." Mr. President, restore our country. End the lawlessness at the border.
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