Mike Cloud: “This issue is so important, and I thank the chairman for putting this together because this is the message that we need…”

“This issue is so important, and I thank the chairman for putting this together because this is the message that we need to continue to speak about. Being from south Texas, our district sees every week the effects of this and has for years. I have met the young women who have been abused. I have been to the ranchers who have found rape trees on their properties. We have seen now throughout the Nation of the effects of the drugs that are pouring into our community. Under the Trump administration we had actually seen a decrease in drug overdoses in our country for the first time in a long time. Now we know that fentanyl is the number one killer of young people in our country. All this is because this administration has chosen, instead of partnering with communities to protect our border, to be the last mile delivery system for the cartels. And so whatever dollars we send them, they repurpose. Instead of using them for securing our border and to doing the things we sent them to do, they have retasked the individuals, as has been mentioned, but they turn them into the last mile delivery system for the cartels. So we are aiding and abetting cartels to profit hundreds of millions of dollars constantly and continually.…”