ICYMI: Chairman Green Slams Biden Admin for Worsening Fentanyl Crisis
In an interview with the Daily Signal, Chairman of Homeland Security Committee Mark Green (TN-07) shared about the dire situation at the southern border.
In Case You Missed It via The Daily Signal; from a letter to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention and a border bootcamp to a House hearing on the border as well as an upcoming field hearing, Chairman Green has been working overtime to address the border crisis.
The Biden Administration Has Been ‘Making the Fentanyl Crisis Worse,’ Republican Warns
By Samantha Aschieris | March 6, 2023
When asked about a recent letter he sent to the CDC regarding the need for updated numbers on drug overdose deaths, Chairman Green said:
“We live in an age where you can dial up anything on Netflix and watch it anytime you want. We basically have pretty much everything on demand. Why it takes five months to get the numbers from fiscal year 2022 makes no sense to me whatsoever. And so, we need real-time, well, honestly, we need real-time information to make good decisions.”
When asked about the Biden Administration’s role in the fentanyl crisis, the Congressman said:
“[The Biden Administration] did away with 89 Trump-era policies that decreased flow across our southern border. And what’s happened is, with so many people being able to come in, word gets back to those countries, more people come, the drug cartels are taking advantage of the situation.
So, they take a ‘coyote’ paid individual, many of them to the crossing sites, they overwhelm the crossing sites, and that requires [Customs and Border Protection] to thin the lines in the rural areas and the fentanyl comes pouring across the country.”
Regarding the border bootcamp for freshmen Homeland Security Committee Members he hosted, Rep. Green said:
So, the status of the border is basically what we’ve been talking about. It’s an open border, the control of which has been seized by the drug cartels. But I wanted my freshmen to understand it, to get a bird’s eye view, and they literally did.…
But they got to see the border and now they’re informed and can make good decisions on the policies we need to implement, the laws we need to implement to get [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas to do his job.”
Rep. Green described the conditions at the border:
“When you see the image of a woman who—because what the cartels do is, when they sneak people in, they put them in stash houses and then to pay the cartel back, those people have to commit crimes in the United States, basically sell or traffic drugs or people. Well, if you refuse to do that, you wind up dead. And this one woman did and she was raped, scalped, and dropped at an elementary school in the United States. I mean, that’s how horrible these people are, but it’s also how horrible the dereliction of duty of Mayorkas. ...”
He also previewed an upcoming field hearing that is taking place in McAllen Texas on March 15:
“Hearing number one will be just Chief [Raul] Ortiz, the head of the … Border Patrol, and he’s going to come in and testify. And then we’ll have a second round of nongovernment folks, so the Texas [Department of Public Safety] and the Texas National Guard and other people impacted by this unbelievable tragedy.”
Listen to the full interview here.
