Lankford Continues Fight to Stop the Illegal Drugs Coming Across the Border into Oklahoma

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on YouTube.

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on Rumble.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Senator James Lankford (R-OK), lead Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Government Operations and Border Management, visited the US-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona this week after Title 42 authority had been lifted. The visit was to continue to conduct oversight and see the ongoing crisis firsthand, and to hear from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The Nogales, Arizona border is one of the highest traffic locations for illegal migrants and illegal drugs. With 75 percent of CBP agents focused on processing asylum claims it leaves 25 percent of the agents to cover a vast terrain due to gaps left in the unsecured border. The inability to secure the border has led to deadly and dangerous drugs like fentanyl coming across the border and into states like Oklahoma. CBP has seized 17,000 pounds of fentanyl from October 2022 to April 2023.

In a hearing last month, Lankford had the opportunity to ask Chief of Police for McAlester, OK, Kevin Hearod about the situation facing local law enforcement from increased criminal activity and drugs due to illegal immigration across our southern border. In August, after touring the southern border in the Rio Grande Valley, Lankford penned an op-ed about how the chaos at the southern border is literally killing Oklahomans through drug trafficking.

Excerpt

Lankford: We’ve got to be able to actually close gaps in the fence and provide the technology and the infrastructure here to be able to assist the agents that are here on the line  We’ve got to fix the asylum process so it’s actually real asylum, and people that qualify for get in, and then we’ve actually get the resources to ICE ERO that people that have been told by a court, ‘You have to leave,’ actually are escorted outside the country. Every country in the world is always trying to be able to manage their borders  We’re a country also that should be able to manage our border. We can do it. Let’s do it.

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