Political Quotes

“The Nunn amendment requires the Attorney General to report on how much each State spent on investigating fentanyl trafficked through the border. I do not oppose this amendment because it does not repeat the same misleading talking points that Republicans often use when discussing fentanyl, and I am grateful to my colleague across the aisle for that. I did want to make a couple of points on this because I think fentanyl is such an important issue in all of our districts. It is a scourge on all of our districts, all of our communities. We are all seeing the effects of fentanyl that is coming into this country. We know that fentanyl is being smuggled into our country and that some of it comes through our southern border, but I do want to make clear that fentanyl is seized primarily at the ports of entry. In fiscal year 2023, CBP seized approximately 27,000 pounds of fentanyl. Less than 10 percent of the drugs were actually seized by Border Patrol. The vast majority, roughly 90 percent of the drugs, were seized by the Office of Field Operations, which is the entity that mans the ports of entry. I will be clear that the evidence does not show in any way that asylum seekers are bringing drugs to our shores. In fact, increasingly, drug cartels are being very smart about this. They are recruiting American citizens to bring drugs across the border through ports of entry. In 2022, over 89 percent of convicted fentanyl traffickers were American citizens.…”