“This is a repeating occurrence taking place at our border countless times a day. Many of those crossing remain unknown to American authorities—a situation that poses a serious threat to our national security,” D’Esposito added.
Cartels in Control
On Feb. 27, D’Esposito told Fox News that he had discussed the issue with Border Patrol officials and local law enforcement, and that his trip demonstrated how cartels are in control of the U.S.-Mexico border.“What we’re seeing here is that the cartels, especially those in Mexico, are the ones that are really controlling the border,” D’Esposito said.
He added, “They are playing a tactical game of moving people from different points of entry so that they are able to illegally have people enter this country at different points while all of our Customs and Border Patrol agents are tied up dealing with a large group of migrants.”
The cartels “are utilizing certain points of entry,” D’Esposito added, with large groups of 10 to 40 people crossing at different locations several miles apart.
When Border Patrol officials rush to one of these locations, the lawmaker explained, cartels then select a middle ground border location to send people or drugs into the United States undetected.
“What’s happening is the cartel is putting a price on crossing the border into the United States of America. And then when they successfully cross over and into this country, they’re changing their price to an inflated number,” D’Esposito said. “So what happens is the people who are coming here can’t afford to pay the difference. So they’re basically owned by the cartel.”
“We’re at the point now where the cartel is even willing for a price to help fill out paperwork on the Homeland Security app to get these individuals into the country,” he continued. “They’re being coached by the cartel on how to answer questions.”
“Sadly, this is a regular occurrence and underscores the need to provide border patrol with the resources they need,” he wrote in his tweet.
Altogether, the DEA said it intercepted 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl—more than enough to kill every American.
Illegal Immigrants
During his interview with Fox, D’Esposito also expressed concerns about the number of “gotaway” illegal immigrants that are now in the United States.“Since Joe Biden has been president of the United States, over 1.2 million people have entered into this country illegally,” he said.
“Those are 1.2 million people that we don’t know where they are,” he continued. “We don’t know what they’re doing. We don’t know who they’re with. They have the ability to carry illegal narcotics into this country, which is a plague on many of the communities that we live in.”
The congressman said stopping illegal immigrants is not about “denying people the American dream.”
“It’s about having people reach the American dream the right way and do it so that we know who they are,” he said. “We know where they’re going, we know what they’re about. And we know that they want to be here because they want to love this country, and they want everything that it has to offer.”
Another problem is that Border Patrol experiences high levels of staff turnover, D’Esposito said.
“They are constantly losing members to other federal agencies,” he said. ”People are leaving this job because they are not being treated correctly by the administration.”
Schools and businesses have also been interrupted because of the influx of illegal immigrants, according to the congressman.
“We spoke to people on the ground who said throughout their day, while they’re trying to provide quality education to the kids that are attending this educational facility, they are interrupted numerous times a day because [of] gotaways that get into the community, and they need to shut down their school,” he said.
“There are many days that they’re unable to open the school until later on in the afternoon because they have gotaways that are roaming through the community.”
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