I provide you with updates on the crisis at our Southern border often because it is a topic that doesn't get nearly enough attention from the mainstream media, but is critically important. It's also a crisis that can be solved with the right policy measures. We can both encourage people seeking to immigrate here to do so legally and keep the drug cartels from controlling the border. Some politicians in Washington don't want to do that because it would mean working together.
It has been more than 100 days since my colleagues and I first called on House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) to hold a bipartisan hearing on the border crisis. As of writing this, she has still refused.
I used my time in another Oversight Committee hearing to question Jim Carroll, former Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, about the massive increase in the amount of illegal fentanyl coming into the United States. The topic of the hearing was the opioid crisis, and as the data shows, prescription opioid addiction sometimes leads to people trying other illegal drugs. As more fentanyl has been seized by border patrol in 2021 than all of 2020, I wanted to know if officials are aware of the increasing amount of deadly fentanyl coming into the country to figure out how we can work together to stop it. Former Director Carroll revealed not only that they are aware of the increased amount of fentanyl, but since marijuana is becoming legal in more and more states, cartels have increased the amount of other hard drugs they are smuggling into the country, like methamphetamine and cocaine.
I hope that this hearing will be eye-opening for Chairwoman Maloney, and help her realize that people are dying because of President Biden's callous border policies that prioritize politics over people.
