House Homeland Committee Vice Chairman Michael Guest called the situation at the Southern border “lawless” in a Twitter post where the House Homeland GOP said they are “committed to restoring order.”
“The border has become a lawless society,” Guest said, according to the April 12 Twitter post.
Customs and Border Patrol statistics show the number of criminal non-citizen arrests spiked in FY 2021 and FY 2022 as border patrol agents recently arrested persons on the FBI's terror watch list. Arrests were 2,478 in FY 2020 and jumped to 10,763 in FY2021 and 12,028 in FY2022. Criminal convictions for “assault, battery, domestic violence” among persons arrested were 1,178 in FY2021 and 1,142 in FY2022 compared to 208 in FY2020.
House Homeland GOP called it “unacceptable” in response to a tweet from a spokesperson with the Texas Department of Public Safety that said: "The Del Rio Sector continues to see an uptick in high-speed chases involving human smugglers. Just within a few hours - @TxDPS Troopers were involved in back-to-back pursuits."
“Every American’s safety is at risk due to Biden’s open borders,” House Homeland GOP wrote in an April 13 Twitter post.
The New York Post reported Border Patrol agents apprehended 16 people on the FBI Terror Watch List at the US-Mexico border. Approximately 70 non-citizens on the watch list have been arrested at the southern border since October. In FY2021 there were only 15 apprehensions of people on the watch list. The New York Post expects the number to exceed FY2022's 98 arrests.
Drug overdose deaths have increased significantly in the last 2 years as border patrol agents are dealing with a surplus of incoming illegal drugs, including fentanyl, at both the southern and northern borders. CBS News reported in 2022, the DEA seized enough fentanyl to kill every American. From 2019-2021, annual deaths due to fentanyl overdose nearly doubled. Homeland Security tracks down Mexican cartels that are largely responsible for smuggling the drugs but the cartels have links to China where production takes place. One official said, "They have the contacts to China and then furthermore, the distribution networks to get things across the United States, the smuggling networks."
Fentanyl is being smuggled mainly through the US-Mexico border, with 90% of some 80,000 opioid-related deaths due to fentanyl in 2021, CBS News reports. Mexican drug cartels have ramped up the flow of fentanyl into an industry that brings the drugs at the border and into the US. "The vast, vast majority is sought to be smuggled through the ports of entry and tractor-trailer trucks and passenger vehicles," said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a hearing in February.
