The cartels "running human traffic" through the U.S.-Mexico border also are bringing in drugs that kill more than 70,000 Americans every year as they exploit the policies of President Joe Biden, Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, said Friday.
"It is a war, and we absolutely are losing this war, and the American people need to be told the truth about how this is happening," Babin said on Fox Business' "Mornings With Maria" about the illegal drugs coming across the border. "We need to reverse the policies of President Biden and his administration, and let's get the vice president down there."
Vice President Kamala Harris' role with the immigration situation is to "address the root causes" of illegal immigration and not the border itself, White House press secretary Jen Psaki clarified Monday, the New York Post reported. She admitted there has been some "confusion over that" after Biden told reporters that he was delegating the immigration issue to his vice president.
Babin said he and other Republicans touring border sites invited Harris along to see the situation for herself, but have heard nothing back.
Meanwhile, the situation is mounting because the drug cartels are taking advantage of the new rules, said Babin.
"We know that the drug cartels are running human traffic through our border which fills up our facilities, formerly called cages when President [Donald] Trump was in office, and the facilities are overrun," Babin said. "We have probably 16,000-plus unaccompanied minors that have to be cared for."
This means Border Patrol agents are pulled off the line, allowing the smugglers to bring drugs into the United States, he added.
"We visited with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and several other enforcement agencies, state and federal, and I can tell you that drugs are pouring across our border during this time of the border crisis," Babin said. "The cartels have exploited this to the max."
Meanwhile, the situation with young migrants crossing the border by the thousands, not to mention the adult immigrants, is resulting in an "unbelievable humanitarian crisis," Babin said.
"You got a glimpse of it when the two little girls were tossed over a 14-foot fence and the coyotes ran away after tossing their shoes behind them," said Babin, referring to the two Ecuadorian girls, ages 3 and 5, who were dropped over a section of border fence and had to be rescued by the Border Patrol earlier this week.
"It is seeing things like this that I think should be opening the eyes of America to what is happening down there," he said. "This isn't a challenge. It's an all-out assault. It's open borders. It's an enabling of the cartels. It is Joe Biden and the Democrat Party's open border policy."
Babin said Trump faced a border crisis in 2019 but he handled it through a series of programs and executive orders that Biden threw out upon taking office.
The congressman also discussed Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure program, saying that if Democrats push it through with reconciliation, there is probably not much Republicans can do to stop it, but they will still fight the plans.
"This is just another tax and spend from the Democrat Party," he said. "They talk big, they call it names. It sounds great. This is supposed to be an infrastructure bill. I serve on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. I'm all for infrastructure..this has very little to do with infrastructure.
"There are some infrastructure provisions in here that I think would be good but there's so much more that I believe we are going to hinder and hurt the American consumer, the American taxpayer."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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