Spartz: “Border crisis escalating into out-of-control chaos”
With members of House Judiciary this week, Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.05) joined border agents for patrols of the U.S. border in the Rio Grande Valley and visited the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Donna Centralized Processing Center, Hidalgo Port of Entry, Office of Refugee Resettlement Shelter and the Border Patrol temporary outdoor processing site under the Anzalduas bridge.
Following the visits, the members led a roundtable discussion at the National Border Patrol Council Headquarters in Edinburg, Texas, and conducted a press conference.
Congresswoman Spartz’s press conference remarks about the border crisis can be viewed online.
Migrants wait at a Border Patrol temporary outdoor processing site under the Anzalduas bridge, just south of Mission, Texas. (Photo provided)
Here are some of the numbers from this sector of the border:
- 40 percent of the Border Patrol workforce processing migrants instead of safeguarding the border
- 2,400 migrants per day being processed
- 1,000 migrants per day not being detained due to resource limitations
- 12,000 migrants in the last few weeks alone were released by Border Patrol into the country
- 5,400 percent increase in drugs smuggled
- $400 million per month in estimated profits for the drug cartels just from human trafficking
Firearm, currency and drug seizures for FY 2021 from the Laredo Field Office:
- 400 pounds of fentanyl, up 2,067 percent
- 4,995 pounds of cocaine, up 187 percent
- 35,213 pounds of marijuana, up 89 percent
- 13,840 pounds of methamphetamine.
- 240 weapons, up 131 percent
- $5.7 million in currency, up 64 percent
Spartz
“Perverse incentives and a lack of leadership from the Biden Administration have created humanitarian and national security crises at our southern border that are spiraling into out-of-control chaos. With Border Patrol overwhelmed, the Mexican drug cartels are now dictating the rules on the U.S. side of the border,” Rep. Spartz said. “President Biden must act now to get our border under control.”
At the end of March, the Congresswoman visited the El Paso Border Patrol Central Processing Center for unaccompanied children, meeting with border agents and speaking with migrant children. Rep. Spartz now heads to San Antonio, Eagle Pass and Del Rio with the Republican Study Committee before returning to Indiana.