It is a lie — an utterly false statement — to claim that the southern border is “open” or that the area has somehow been abandoned by the president’s team to the control of foreign criminal organizations. Those like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene who would assert or suggest such a thing are not living in reality when they make such statements.
And as proof, officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who help handle entry at the southern border of the United States, have successfully made a massive bust that saw them taking possession of nearly 900,000 fentanyl pills with what the agency said was an estimated street value of $2.57 million. It all went down June 26.
Would those pills, which a driver was carrying inside of porcelain sinks, have been intercepted if the southern border was “open” as some Republicans insist? And guess what else? The interception took place not at some nondescript location in the middle of the desert but at a port of entry to the United States, meaning an established location for border crossings… meaning that on that front as well, the established security infrastructure around the southern border was perfectly in place to stop the attempted smuggling.
Now, obviously the fentanyl crisis isn’t over just because of one bust, and smugglers have obviously found methods of subverting attempts to thwart the drug trade threatening Americans’ lives. But the notion that it’s just a free for all at the southern border is a pathetically hollow lie that essentially betrays those affected by the real-world problems that are seen, which have obviously affected jurisdictions across America, including those represented by craven Republicans obviously more interested in using fentanyl deaths and the related horrors the drug leaves for what’s essentially just politicking than putting a long-term solution in place.
The driver in this recent incident was left in Homeland Security custody. CBP — the agency that made this bust — is… get this… under the ultimate control (after the president) of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who Republicans love to characterize as basically asleep on the job.
