As the Biden administration’s failing immigration policies continue to cause a record flood of illegal immigrants and drugs into the country, 26 Republican governors decided to establish a multi-state partnership dubbed the American Governors’ Border Strike Force to address the situation that is spiraling out of control.
The multi-state initiative is modeled after a similar one that Arizona created in 2015, which Governor Doug Ducey’s office said in a release was very successful. Arizona’s effort has led to the seizure of 13,100 pounds of methamphetamine, 801 pounds of heroin, and 985 pounds of fentanyl, among other drug seizures, since it began.
According to the announcement,
“What we’re doing in Arizona works,” Governor Ducey said. “But this is not just an Arizona issue, it’s a national issue. If our entire southern border isn’t secure, our nation isn’t secure. As dangerous transnational criminal organizations continue to profit from holes in the border and fill our communities with drugs, it’s no coincidence that we’re seeing historic levels of opioid-related deaths.”
According to the memorandum outlining the Strike Force’s mission (pdf), the states will coordinate efforts related to targeting cartels and criminal groups by increasing collaboration, improving intelligence, combating human smuggling, and stopping drug flow among each of the participating states.
[wpmfpdf id=”215303″ embed=”1″ target=””]The agreement goes into effect immediately upon signing.
Signatories to the memorandum include Governors Doug Ducey (Ariz.), Kay Ivey (Ala.), Mike Dunleavy (Alaska), Asa Hutchinson (Ark.), Ron DeSantis (Fla.), Brad Little (Idaho), Brian Kemp (Ga.), Eric Holcomb (Ind.), Kim Reynolds (La.), Larry Hogan (Md.), Tate Reeves (Miss.), Mike Parson (Mo.), Greg Gianforte (Mont.), Pete Ricketts (Neb.), Chris Sununu (N.H.), Doug Burgum (N.D.), Mike DeWine (Ohio), Kevin Stitt (Okls.), Henry McMaster (S.C.), Kristi Noem (S.D.), Bill Lee (Tenn.), Greg Abbott (Texas), Spencer Cox (Utah), Glenn Youngkin (Va.), Jim Justice (W.V.), and Mark Gordon (Wy.).
The news comes a day after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that migrant crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border were at their highest levels in two decades.
As reported by The New American, border agents encountered more than 221,000 illegals at the frontier with Mexico in March, and immigration authorities freed more than 80,000 to roam the heartland and begin erecting illegal-alien colonies that cannot be displaced.
The border disaster is expected to worsen even more as the Biden administration prepares to end Title 42 — a Trump-era policy that allowed immigration officials to rapidly turn migrants away at the border and stop them from seeking asylum as a means of preventing the spread of Covid — on May 23.
According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates, as many as 18,000 illegal immigrants will be coming to America’s southern border every day as a result of the policy reversal. That’s more than double the number of people border agents are handling now.
Local sheriffs, such as Roy Boyd of Goliad County, Texas, are warning of the cartels’ ongoing preparations for Title 42 becoming history.
“After spending the winter with normal smuggling activity along the corridors and not having activity in the brush, from what we’ve observed so far, smugglers are beginning to make preparations for a much larger event — something the likes of which we’ve never seen before,” Boyd told The Center Square. “They’re staging stolen vehicles on abandoned properties, [putting] supplies in shacks and in other drop off points, preparing for heavy foot traffic heading north.”
“We’re expecting a surge of people we’ve never seen in the history of the United States,” he added.
A year ago, Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union of approximately 18,000 border patrol agents, said that the cartels were the force controlling America’s southern border. He criticized the Biden administration’s lenient open-border policies that were allowing the invasion to happen.
