Between drugs and immigration, lack of security makes every U.S. town a border town | Opinion
The crisis at our southern border is not a red or blue issue. It is a national security threat that will require leaders at all levels of government to step up and demand action.
After an invitation from several of the region’s mayors, including leaders in McAllen, Edinburg and Donna, I had the opportunity to visit the Texas and Mexico border, along with Southlake Mayor John Huffman.
The purpose of the visit was to discuss and witness firsthand how the border crisis directly affects communities like Keller and Southlake. After a briefing from both the U.S. Border Patrol and the National Border Patrol Council, the visit was a sobering reminder that every city in Texas and America, even those hundreds or thousands of miles away, has now become a border city.
First and foremost: The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol are heroes in every sense of the word. Despite being understaffeded and under-equipped, these heroes battle extreme weather conditions, bonded by one common goal, to safeguard our border in order to protect our way of life at home. The national media and leaders at all levels of government can and must do better to adequately give these men and women the recognition they deserve and the resources they require.
The statistics are shocking and underreported by what we watch on television. From October to mid-November, there were 270,000 encounters with people attempting to cross our southern border, not including the estimated 80,000 “getaways.” These are individuals from all over the world, including areas where the U.S. government has issued “Do Not Travel” advisories, crossing our border unaccounted for.
How does this directly hurt communities like Keller? The amount of drugs pouring over our border, including fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, is staggering. The proliferation of fentanyl has now become a nationwide epidemic, and it’s the most common drug involved in overdose deaths.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the rate of overdose deaths involving fentanyl more than tripled from 2016 through 2021. Last year alone, the U.S. reported 110,000 overdose deaths from synthetic drugs, with more than two-thirds linked to fentanyl.
In a nation that has legalized marijuana in at least 24 states, what some consider a “recreational drug” is sometimes being laced with fentanyl — a substance that is cheap to reproduce, easy to disguise and primarily made with ingredients from China, then smuggled through our southern border.
Our U.S. Border Patrol agents put it best. What we need is not overly complicated but will require common sense and political courage: finish the wall, end catch-and-release, enforce the laws on the books including mandatory detention and expedited removal, address the issue of illegitimate asylum seekers who are contributing to an 8-year backlog within U.S. immigration courts and ensure our U.S. Border Patrol agents have the tools, resources and manpower to protect us at home.
The visit to the border was eye-opening, to say the least. I encourage mayors across Texas and the nation to visit the border for themselves so that they can be better equipped to demand the legislative action that this crisis deserves.
It is time for elected leaders to look past scoring cheap political points, and begin to treat our southern border like the national security threat that it is. Our communities and constituents demand it.
Armin Mizani is mayor of Keller.
