American families are dealing with inflation at 40-year highs, a broken supply chain, lasting damage of COVID lockdowns, plus drug overdose and crime crises. In response, naturally, the Biden administration is ignoring all of those problems to launch a campaign raising awareness of...counterfeit school supplies.
In just the latest tone-deaf move by President Biden and his administration, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unveiled a new partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to "educate students, parents and teachers on the impact counterfeit goods have on the economy" — announced "just in time as kids prepare to go back to school."
It's another Biden administration action that ignores the pain being felt by Americans due to Democrat policies in some sort of attempt to look busy without doing anything to actually address the burdens caused by Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda.
That is, Biden is not having CBP focus on stopping the record-high numbers of illegal immigrants streaming into the United States from Mexico, interdicting human traffickers and cartels making millions off of Biden's unsecured border, or preventing mountains of deadly drugs like fentanyl from hitting Americans streets.
Nope, here's the priority CBP and the Chamber of Commerce "are taking to the airwaves in a nationwide campaign to educate back-to-school shoppers on the dangers of counterfeit goods" including "[f]ake backpacks, pencils, and electronics" that "threaten students’ safety and cost parents more money over time."
Just in time for Back-to-School Shopping!
— CBP (@CBP) August 14, 2022
CBP has joined forces w/ @USChamber to educate students, parents and teachers on the impact counterfeit goods have on the economy, the health and safety of consumers, and 10 tips to “Shop Smart.”
More ?? https://t.co/5v4ch1kyXm pic.twitter.com/KU44VFb7ur
This must be a very serious problem, then, if the Biden administration is launching a full ad campaign warning of the dangers of counterfeit pencils, calculators, and clothes? According to CBP, the agency has made "almost 17,000 seizures" as of August.
Compared with the CBP's own numbers for illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, in almost any recent month, counterfeit good seizures pale in comparison. Take May, for example, which saw agents encounter 239,416 illegal immigrants — more than 14 times more than the number of counterfeit good seizures through August. What's more, for all the CBP's apparently newfound concern for the welfare of children, May saw 14,699 unaccompanied minors intercepted by border agents.
"Fake goods are a danger to American families, particularly children who are about to start another school year," Kasie Brill, Vice President for Brand Protection at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center, said in the CBP's announcement. What about the danger of the open border to families? Deadly drugs being brought in, human traffickers victimizing children and communities on both sides of the border, or convicted sex offenders who are deported from the U.S. only to return to the country by entering illegally?
A page on the Chamber of Commerce website linked from the CBP announcement contains further warnings against counterfeit goods that are also dripping with self-unaware irony:
Buying a fake good may save money in the short-term, but when it breaks, you’ll spend twice as much or more to replace the product. Knock off headphones might fall apart or worse, expose your child to toxic chemicals. Fake clothes may only last one wash before they’re unwearable.
The Biden CBP is very concerned that the counterfeit headphones your kids use this fall — as the cost of goods soar — might contain toxic chemicals...but insist the U.S.-Mexico border is secure and closed and turns a blind eye to the fentanyl streaming in that could end up killing schools-worth of Americans, including teenagers trying drugs that are laced with the deadly drug.
The Biden administration has made its priorities clear, and they are entirely out of step with those of the American people. The blind eye turned toward the border crisis means that families and children on both sides of the border continue to suffer and continue to be endangered, but the Biden administration is focused on telling you not to buy counterfeit pencils.