Since taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has worked hard to persuade Washington to spend more of your money overseas to help mitigate the very problems created by his own weakness on the global stage. Yet his focus on the glamours of foreign policymaking has been matched only by his negligence of our nation’s most pressing national security crisis: our wide-open southern border. It is hard to label this failure as anything but a dereliction of duty that impacts every community in America.
In December alone, more than 300,000 people – twice the population of my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina – illegally crossed our southern border. This has come about in large part due to the Biden administration’s own guilty admission that it releases over 85 percent of illegal immigrants into our country, an absurd arrangement that baits other prospective migrants with the promise of a lawless but seamless entry. Since the beginning of Oct. 2023, for example, President Biden has overseen more than a million migrant encounters at the border. Think about that: millions of foreign nationals whose first action in this country was to break our laws, and President Biden’s first response is releasing them into our neighborhoods with nothing more than a note to appear in court at some prospective date five or even seven years down the line. It’s completely unsustainable.
The sheer numbers alone are astonishing, but they exacerbate another real tragedy our nation endures: Americans hooked on and dying from fentanyl that is trafficked across our border. Every year, more than 70,000 Americans die from fentanyl overdose. These statistics are more than mere numbers – they represent our friends and neighbors, even family members who have fallen victim to this fatal narcotic. And keep in mind that a deadly dose of fentanyl is just two milligrams – the equivalent of a few grains of sand. President Biden’s border crisis is literally killing Americans.
Rather than attempt to address this deteriorating situation, President Biden has made every state a border state by encouraging more and more military-age men to illegally trek across the southern border. By refusing to enforce our laws and ceasing construction of President Trump’s border wall, Biden has incentivized the greatest surge in border encounters in U.S. history. I’ll repeat: this is a dangerous disaster and epic failure.
Last year, anticipating the record-breaking surge in illegal migration into our country, I authored several pieces of legislation to put an end to this crisis once and for all. First and foremost, I’ve proposed legislation that would put $10 billion toward continuing construction of President Trump’s border wall. The conversation over border security begins and ends with building the wall, and no border security measure is complete without this critical funding to prevent and stall would-be law-breakers from entering our country. It’s that simple.
Another of my bills – named after my friend’s son, Alan T. Shao II, who tragically lost his life to fentanyl overdose – would reauthorize Title 42 authorities so that our Customs and Border Protection agents can turn away lawbreakers the second they arrive at our border. I’ve also authored legislation to fully fund technology that would allow us to screen and x-ray every single vehicle coming through our ports of entry so we can identify and seize illegal firearms and drugs coming from Mexico. Lastly, I’m working to go after the financing of the Chinese manufacturers and Mexican cartels who are the main pushers and movers of illicit fentanyl.
Last month, as the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, I hosted Grammy-winning artist Jelly Roll at a hearing to discuss the real-life impacts of fentanyl and addiction. His sincere story and authentic message reinforced the inconvenient truth that drug addiction doesn’t know a class, a race, or a place. Its poison extends out to every limb of society, and its destructive force on families, individuals, and our nation is being exacerbated by President Biden’s broken promises and failed policies. The ultimate purpose of every elected official is to fulfill Proverbs 31:8 and, in the words of Jelly Roll, to make sure “the unseen felt seen.”
The president needs to fix our broken border – and I mean really fix it – today. No more political games, such as his selling off border wall materials while coming to Congress asking for more funding. An annual 70,000 (and counting) dead Americans and a multi-billion dollar human trafficking black market on our doorstep together represent the greatest national security threat of our time. However, the Biden administration seems fixated on pushing Congress to enact his wish list of overseas spending “priorities,” while Democrats in the House and Senate refused until very recently to even acknowledge that our open border was a problem. Before we give Ukraine another dime to defend its borders, we need to start defending our own.
Tim Scott has represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate since 2013.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.