Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy took a trip to the US-Mexico border and railed against what he characterized as President Biden‘s “lax” border policies, saying, “Today more than 300 Americans will be poisoned and die from fentanyl. You’re looking at a place that much of it comes through.”
McCarthy retweeted Congresswoman Jen Kiggans‘ border trip take below:
Yesterday in AZ I met with local law enforcement, residents & community leaders about challenges caused by the #bordercrisis.
— Congresswoman Jen Kiggans (@RepJenKiggans) February 17, 2023
Our weak border security has put our national security at risk as well as our communities, our families & those wishing to come here for a better life. pic.twitter.com/ZxQGSCLOwQ
McCarthy then said: “But I promise you this, the new majority in Congress — we’re going to fight to fix this problem.” Yet even the article in the New York Post covering McCarthy’s trip — headlined “Kevin McCarthy blasts Biden for allowing deadly flood of fentanyl to come across border” — reported that “border crossings were down 42% between December and January.”
McCarthy’s jab at the Biden administration’s border protection also goes against recent reporting at Fox News, like the New York Post a Rupert Muchdoch-owned enterprise.
Fox News is reporting major successes by US officials in seizing drugs at the border, with a headline on February 17 that reads “Border Patrol seizes enough fentanyl to kill 100 million Americans in under five months.”
The article reports how U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz says that agents have seized more than “465lbs of [fentanyl] between the ports of entry since the start of the fiscal year in October.” Ortiz is also quoted saying that in “the month of January alone, agents seized 55 firearms [and] over 6,800 lbs of narcotics, which included enough fentanyl to kill over 60 million people.”
In the video below, Border Patrol chiefs Gloria Sanchez and John Modlin addressed Congress, and Florida Representative Maxwell Frost, about whether the Biden Administration ran a more lax border, saying the answer is “No.”
MUST WATCH >>@MaxwellFrostFL: When President Biden took office, did your agents stop enforcing the border and just allow everybody to come in, thus creating what we hear here is an open border?
— Ian Sams (@IanSams46) February 7, 2023
Border chief: The answer is no. pic.twitter.com/BwCZ19CCNC
In the Fox article, even more staggering drug seizure figures are quoted when all ports of entry are included in the count, with CBP’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) reporting that “overall, 1,200 lbs of fentanyl were seized in January across all ports of entry, up from 796 lbs from January last year — but down from the massive 6,200 lbs seized in December. Overall this fiscal year so far 12,000 lbs have been seized by OFO.”
