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Richmond, VA – Today, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears released this statement on her recent trip to the Southern Border of the United States:
As the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, it was important for me to see the state of the border for myself. Our border is not secure. Seeing this truth in person is a very different experience than just seeing this on the nightly news.
President Biden’s failed immigration policies have made every state a border state, including the Commonwealth of Virginia. Every day five Virginians die from fentanyl, which pours across our Southern Border.
The cartels are engaging in inhumane acts, kidnapping and raping small children. There are places in the bush known as rape trees. Bodies are found in the fields; people are found after drowning; people are dead from rattlesnake bites and drug use. People are stuffed into vans and commercial vehicles without oxygen. It is devastating to see this assault on humanity.
Texas Border Patrol is trying to push people to approved points of entry so they are not harmed, do not drown, are not assaulted, and so that they can be documented.
How did we come to this lack of security at our national border?
Texas has 1,254 miles of border to protect. That's the number of miles from Atlanta, Georgia to Portland, Maine. The taxpayers of Texas are spending $15 billion of their own money without any federal assistance in order to ensure our borders are secure. In the meantime, the cartels have a business model, which was incentivized by President Biden since day one, when he signed multiple Executive Orders telling the world that America was no longer enforcing our immigration policies.
People from every country from A to Z, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, have crossed illegally. Between March 4, 2021 to April 2, 2024, 8,941 people from Communist China were intercepted at our border. We don't know how many “got away.” There were 22,427 people intercepted from Turkey; 26,114 from Brazil; 209 from Iran; 319 from Syria; and 681,259 from Honduras. And there are so many more.
The nightly news would want us to consider Border Patrol as peacekeepers. That is not their mission. They are not the welcoming committee. Border Patrol is there to do exactly that: patrol our borders and keep Americans safe!
As an immigrant, I believe in the American Dream. I understand why people want to plant their foot on American soil. It is the Land of Freedom. I simply believe for the safety and national security of our country, we need to know who is gaining entry and why.
We must know if the immigrants are running from something, such as criminal charges, or if they are running to something, such as freedom and opportunity. The President must take action to secure our border and he must take action now.
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