U.S. Reps. Richard Hudson (R-NC), Steve Stivers (R-OH), Bob Latta (R-OH) & Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) tour the southern border via boat with Customs and Border Patrol Officers officers.
Photo provided by Malliotakis office.
Sign up for our amNewYork email newsletter to get news, updates, and local insights delivered straight to your inbox!
By Stephen Witt
While the humanitarian crisis along the nation’s southern border under the Biden Administration is growing in record numbers, it is also acting as a diversion for the increase of convicted felons, weapons, and illegal drugs to flow across the border.
That according to U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island, Southern Brooklyn), who traveled with a House Republican delegation over the weekend to the southern border where they met with Customs and Border Patrol Officers (CBP) and toured the Donna Migrant Processing Facility.
“What I have seen, experienced and heard at the border is absolutely heartbreaking and truly puts me at a loss for words,” said Malliotakis. “At this facility alone, CBP officers have apprehended nearly 1,000 convicted felons, 63 gang members, 102 sex offenders, 20 AK-47s, along with thousands of pounds of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and meth – and that’s only what they’ve caught. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the capacity for this facility is supposed to be 250 people, but right now over 4,000 migrants are housed there.”
According to the latest CBP figures released last week, March 2021 saw encounters with 172,000 persons attempting entry along the Southwest border, representing a 71 percent increase over February 2021.
The majority of the encounters on the Southwest border remain single adults, but there has also been a significant increase of unaccompanied children from Central America at the Southwest border – 18,890 in March 2021, a 100 percent increase over February, according to CBP figures.
Additionally, the CBP reported that although drug seizures were down 14 percent nationwide from March 2021 as compared to February 2021, cocaine interceptions increased 26 percent, methamphetamine seizures increased 91 percent and heroin seizures were up 22 percent.
Malliotakis attributes the increase of both migrants and illegal activity to the Biden Administration’s dismantling of the Trump Administration’s previous agreements with Central American countries and the failure to adequately secure the border.
“The Biden Administration’s immigration policies lack common sense. In fact, by mid-Summer of this year, the number of illegal border crossings will surpass the population of at least six states, including President Biden’s home state of Delaware,” said Malliotakis.
“The only winners here are the heartless, emboldened smugglers, cartels and suspected terrorists who are raping women, abusing children and profiting nearly half a billion dollars every month. It is absolutely unacceptable that the Administration is allowing this crisis to continue; it must immediately address the flow of illegal migration into our country to even begin solving the immigration crisis as a whole,” the lawmaker added.
