During the State of the Union speech, President Joe Biden tried to claim that the U.S. southern border is improving, despite the fact that it has gotten significantly worse.
Under the Biden administration, illegal immigration has soared to unprecedented levels.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded over 250,000 encounters with illegal immigrants in December 2022, the highest number recorded in U.S. history.
Based on December’s numbers, the administration has now experienced ten straight months of 200,000+ illegal immigrant encounters.
The president claimed otherwise during his speech to Congress.
“We now have a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers and seizing over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in just the last several months,” Biden said.
“Since we launched our new border plan last month, unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97%,” he added.
Former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf responded to Biden’s claims by saying that the president thinks seizing thousands of pounds of fentanyl is a “success.”
Biden talks about seizing thousands of pounds of fentanyl like it’s a success.
Perhaps he missed the testimony today that the fentanyl killing 100,000 Americans per year is being snuck across the border, making the cartels billions of dollars of income. #sotu2023
— Chad Wolf (@ChadFWolf) February 8, 2023
Moreover, referencing the fentanyl crisis, Biden said, “fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year.”
In response, Republicans yelled “border!” in the House chamber, indicating Biden should close the border and one Republican shouted, “It’s your fault.”
When the GOP members of Congress called on him to close the border, Biden said, “you got it,” but didn’t follow up with any details.
Furthermore, fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18-45.
During his address, the president laid out his plan to combat the fentanyl crisis.
“So, let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale, and trafficking, with more drug detection machines to inspect cargo and stop pills and powder at the border,” he said.
More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021. 70,000 of those deaths came from fentanyl and other related compounds.
Additionally, former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan said that Congress must hold the Biden administration accountable.
“Congress needs to hold Joe Biden, [Homeland Secretary] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas, and everyone else responsible for this travesty accountable for what they’ve done to this nation,” he said.
“This administration’s policies are dangerous and inhumane, and the new majority in Congress better get serious about doing something to stop them. We are quickly running out of time to fix this—act now, show some spine, or demonstrate that you care about border security to the same extent the Left does,” Homan added.
The president’s claim that illegal immigration has gone “down” is false. Under his administration, illegal immigration has reached its highest number in decades.
