As House Republicans continue their work to shine a light on — and bring accountability to — the Biden administration, the House's Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability drew attention to the growing border crisis at the United States' northern border on Tuesday.
Subcommittee Chairman Dan Bishop (R-NC) blasted Biden for — as Townhall has previously reported — failing to handle the northern border the same way he's failed to address the crisis at the southern border.
Bishop said on Tuesday that even the fact his subcommittee was holding a hearing on the developing crisis at the U.S.-Canada border was "a testament to the fact that the damage of poor decisions tends to compound in unexpected ways."
"While the historic crisis at our Southwest border warrants primary focus, the disastrous consequences of the Biden-Mayorkas open border policies have spread to our once-secure northern border as well," Bishop continued. Even though vast swaths of the northern border are relatively desolate, there are "other areas, unlike the southern border, [that] offer suburban and easy access for illegal migrant crossings," Bishop noted while displaying photos taken along the U.S.-Canada border.
As Townhall has previously noted, the number of illegal border crossers into the U.S. from Canada "has multiplied rapidly" and is already "overwhelming Customs and Border Protection, local law enforcement, and local communities," Bishop reported.
Much like at the U.S.-Mexico border, Bishop said the Biden administration's "failed policies embolden criminal organizations to exploit the northern border, smuggling people — including children — drugs, and weapons over the northern border." It's not like the Biden administration is unwittingly allowing such illicit activity to take place, either. "The Biden Administration admits that transnational criminal organizations take advantage of the northern border terrain" to carry out their business.
Criminal organizations continue to take advantage of the Biden admin's failed border policies leaving the Northern border at risk. pic.twitter.com/NXVm2rtojm
— House Homeland GOP (@HomelandGOP) March 28, 2023
And why wouldn't such organizations do so? They've profited, increased their power, and spread their influence by taking advantage of Biden's crisis at the southern border. Of course they're now working to expand their efforts to the northern border that's governed by the same failed Biden administration policies.
To wit, Bishop cited data from the Swanton Sector of the U.S.-Canada border including New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire that reported 28 children younger than 14 years old were apprehended illegally crossing the border just since March 10th. Compared to the previous fiscal year, the number of illegal alien encounters by border agents is up more than 800 percent.
In addition, Bishop recounted how "authorities busted 17 illegal aliens from Nicaragua and Guatemala in one stash house in Lisbon, Maine" last week, including two who had previously been removed from the United States and four who had previously crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Smugglers take advantage of aliens, leaving them in treacherous conditions," Bishop explained. "Just last year, an Indian family of four, including two young children, were left to freeze to death at the northern border after being abandoned by a smuggler."
WATCH: My full opening statement for our @HomelandGOP hearing on the northern border crisis. pic.twitter.com/fiekdDSdec
— Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) March 28, 2023
According to Bishop, the limited action taken by the Biden administration in response to the southern border crisis means Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has "surged resources away from other areas critical to homeland security, including the northern border." That included sending "over 20 percent of the northern border workforce" to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022, another too little, too late move by the Biden administration.
As such, there are now "fewer than 2,000 Border Patrol agents" responsible for securing, monitoring, and enforcing the "3,145-mile land border" that is "more than twice the size of the southwest border," Bishop continued.
Due to the Biden administration's reallocation of border resources and overall failure to address illegal immigration, the threats to America from Biden's border crisis continue to grow. Bishop reported that the last six months saw border agents "apprehended an illegal alien listed in the Terrorist Screening Data Set between northern border ports of entry." Another 176 individuals listed on U.S. terror watch lists were nabbed at official northern border ports of entry, more than the 38 such individuals caught at southern border ports of entry.
In addition to ill-meaning individuals, Bishop noted that enough fentanyl was transported across the U.S.-Canada border in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 "to kill 3.4 million Americans," but that's just what was apprehended. As Bishop explained, border officials "estimate that they are only seizing five to ten percent of all drugs smuggled across the southwest border" and, "with far less manpower in the north, over a much larger border...it's daunting to imagine what narcotis are coming over the northern border that we do not specifically know about."
"President Biden’s open border policies and Secretary Mayorkas’ refusal to enforce our nation’s laws has jeopardized national security at the U.S.-Canada border and the operational readiness of Border Patrol agents," Bishop said before pledging he and his colleagues "will hold President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas accountable for this metastasizing crisis."
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