Barry Moore said that the human toll of the border crisis ‘continues to escalate’

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Barry Moore

On Saturday, Congressman Barry Moore discussed the southern border situation with Newsmax’s Lidia Curanaj. A hearing of the House Judiciary Committee revealed the negative side of the border crisis. Moore discussed how the fentanyl epidemic plaguing American communities does not discriminate against race, gender, or party affiliation. Moore also contrasted former President Donald Trump’s $4 billion request to continue the construction of a border wall with President Joe Biden’s spending of $100 billion to defend Ukraine’s border.

“President Trump asked for $4 billion to secure our border and finish the wall, and they said, ‘Oh, that’s too much money,’ the Democrats voted no. He was fought every step of the way, and yet we’ve spent $100 billion securing Ukraine’s border against Russia, and we have an invasion on [our]southern border,” said Moore. “The 2,200 pounds of fentanyl we’re seizing on the southern border [per month]is more than we seized in all of 2018, and Sheriff [Mark] Dannels said himself, in four decades of working that border, the most manageable he’s ever seen it was in 2018 under President Trump. He said it’s the worst he’s ever seen it today, and it continues to escalate.”

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels told the Committee that the border situation has never been uglier in his career than it is now.

“I work with many border patrol agents, federal agents, and to date, I have never heard one say that it’s working: the morale, the frustration they feel, the frustration we feel,” Sheriff Dannels testified. “We’ve had to step up our game.”

Since July, the border patrol and customs officials have averaged seizures of 2,200 pounds a month. U.S. authorities are confiscating more fentanyl in a single month than they did during all of 2018.

Rep. Moore also spoke with Newsmax’s Emma Rechenberg and Jon Glasgow about the House Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on the border.

“Fifty years ago, we declared a war on drugs with just 6,700 deaths,” Moore said. “Last year, [we had]107,000 fentanyl deaths, and it’s pouring across our southern border. The Democrats on the other side of the aisle say, ‘Well, it’s coming through the ports of entry,’ but that is not the case, and we talked a great deal to the sheriff about that. We’re finding out now that it’s all along the U.S. southern border. It’s pretty porous, and the drug cartels control in that area of the border.”

The Border Patrol apprehended a record number of border crossers in 2022. Biden has overturned a number of Trump-era border policies resulting in a record increase in human migration.

Alabama Today recently spoke with a waitress in Leeds who was apprehended at the border. The 21-year-old woman from Guatemala speaks English and Spanish as well as her Native American language, a dialect of old Mayan. She entered the U.S. alone though she has a brother and a sister already here. The young lady said that she had intended to enter the U.S. over land but was intercepted at the border, brought to Alabama, and has been here for a year.

Moore is in his second term representing Alabama’s Second Congressional District.

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