Is the situation at our border a national emergency?
Over 68,000 immigrants were apprehended on our southwestern border in February. That number could reach 100,000 in March as the weather warms up. Approximately 268,000 immigrants were apprehended in the first five months of fiscal year 2019 – 150,000 more than in a similar period last year.
At the current rate, 1 million of the poorest people on earth could show up at the Rio Grande this year.
This human wave should be enough to convince lawmakers of the exigency of the situation. But it isn’t, as we see in the Democratic Party’s dogmatic commitment to open borders.
There’s more to the emergency than migrants.
Open borders are literally killing Americans. By the thousands.
An opioid epidemic is ravaging our nation. Over 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2017. The Centers for Disease Control shows the sharpest increase in deaths came from fentanyl, the cheap synthetic heroin that is flooding our country.
This death drug is made in China and is sent to America via Canada and Mexico, a form of chemical warfare with lethal consequences.
In the 19th century, Britain pumped opium into the Middle Kingdom, turning the Chinese people into addicts while enriching the Crown.
The Chinese emperor’s drug czar told Queen Victoria, “If the traffic in opium is not stopped, a few decades from now we shall not only be without soldiers to resist the enemy, but also in want of silver to provide an army.”
Today, China profits while fentanyl kills Americans.
President Xi Xinping promised President Trump he’d crack down on China’s fentanyl factories – but, like so many other promises the Chinese Communists have made, Xi has yet to deliver.
Consider this: Beijing has been relentless in hunting down and closing meth labs. Police have been so successful that meth pushers have been forced to import the drug from other countries.
But the authorities have not been able to shut down the fentanyl manufacturers. Why not? Unlike meth, the Chinese people don’t use fentanyl.
That poison is sent to the U.S.
One load of fentanyl seized by customs agents on the Mexican border in January was enough to kill more than 115 million people.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., is a lawmaker who talks about the drug’s deadly impact. Her website declares fentanyl “the most pressing public health and safety challenge facing New Hampshire.”
Hassan told U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, “Almost 500 people died in 2017 and in 2016 from overdoses of opioids in my state, most of which came from fentanyl, so I would ask you to identify this as a priority” in trade negotiations with China.
But Sen. Hassan doesn’t back up her talk with action. In fact, her deeds directly contradict her words.
A week after lecturing Ambassador Lighthizer, Hassan voted against President Trump’s declaration of a border emergency.
It’s even worse than that: Hassan is co-sponsoring legislation that would make it easier to import opioids. She has signed onto Bernie Sanders’ Affordable and Safe Prescription Drug Importation Act, S. 97, which would open our borders further to the free flow of drugs – all drugs – from Canada and other countries.
Canada is a major transshipment point for fentanyl entering America. Canadian authorities flag parcels arriving from China and have launched dozens of investigations of vendors shipping fentanyl to the U.S.
It would be bad enough if the Hassan-Sanders plan only applied to Canada. But it doesn’t.
It would permit importing drugs from any of the 34 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD.
Mexico is an OECD member, and the Mexican drug cartels are in on the fentanyl action.
We don’t need to increase the free flow of drugs across our borders.
We need to build the wall.
There’s no question we have a national emergency, though Sen. Sanders, Sen. Hassan and their ilk refuse to admit it.
