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Friends,
President Ronald Reagan famously said, “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”
President Joe Biden’s open border policies have fueled a historic surge in illegal immigration and the flames of our ongoing border crisis.
Since Biden took office, there have been over 5.6 million illegal crossings encountered at our Southern border, and while approximately 1.6 million illegal immigrants have escaped apprehension that we know of. According to Customs and Border Protection, 144,500 illegal immigrants were encountered at the Southern border in June alone—a 186% increase from the number of June encounters during the last administration.
To date in FY23, Border Patrol agents have seized more than 22,000 pounds of fentanyl, surpassing the total amount seized in all of FY22. Fentanyl poisoning is the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45, and is killing 300 Americans every single day—including over 3,000 North Carolinians in 2022. An amount small enough to fit inside the ear of Lincoln on a penny can be lethal. For anyone who cares about the safety of our young people, it’s heartbreaking and frustrating to witness this rapid decline in border security.
Every state, including North Carolina, is suffering from the impacts of Biden’s open border policies. That’s why last week, I confronted Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra following the recent announcement that a facility for unaccompanied minors will begin operating in Greensboro within the next few weeks.
In 2021, while testifying before the Energy and Commerce Committee, Secretary Becerra told me there were no plans to open such a facility in North Carolina. He knew that very day he had people doing a site visit at American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro. After Secretary Becerra blatantly misled me and several members of our delegation, the people of North Carolina deserve to know the truth. We have received nothing but delayed and vague responses.
You deserve real answers and real solutions. Housing illegal immigrants in schools across the nation will not solve our border crisis. When House Republicans made our “Commitment to America”, we promised to secure the border and protect innocent Americans from the consequences of President Biden's radical agenda. Real solutions like H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, and the recently passed Schools Not Shelters Act, will deliver on our promise to secure the border—something Washington Democrats refuse to do.
As the Sandhills’ Congressman and representative of the largest military base in the country, I am also committed to our resilient energy grid. Physical attacks on our nation’s power grid, like the one we experienced in Moore County, increased by 71% in 2022.
Earlier this month, I joined a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee hearing to further examine emerging threats to our electrical grid. This hearing built on what we learned at the field hearing I hosted in Moore County last month. We heard from expert witnesses about tangible solutions to strengthen our grid and prevent future attacks on the infrastructure you depend on.
One threat to our grid is the lack of a viable supply chain for grid components. Biden’s Department of Energy is about to make matters worse through proposed rules that will make it harder to find transformers. Their new rules will increase the time to procure new transformers from months to years.
To combat these proposed standards, I introduced Protecting America’s Distribution Transformer Supply Chain Act to delay these new bureaucratic regulations for energy distribution transformers. I was able to include this in the FY2024 Department of Energy authorization bill. This won’t solve the supply chain problem, but it will stop Washington bureaucrats from making it worse.
Our government exists to serve and protect you. From securing our borders to protecting your way of life, I am committed to building a safer future for you and your family that promotes long term economic prosperity, public safety, and freedom.
Until Next Time,
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