An Eye-Opening Trip to the Border
Majority Leader Sen. Casey Crabtree (R-Madison)
Majority Leader Rep. Will Mortenson (R-Pierre)
Representative Tony Venhuizen (R-Sioux Falls)
Anyone who has watched any cable news understands that the southern border is a hot topic. Talking heads blame and rage over America’s border policy (or lack thereof). Given the hot-button politics, we thought it was important to gather facts, whether they supported our position or not, and to get a first-hand look at the situation on our southern border.
Along with business and community leaders from across the state, we traveled to McAllen, Texas to tour the border. We heard from a landowner whose land abuts the Rio Grande River. He showed us the trails used by migrants leading to the river. He told us terrifying accounts of run-ins with the cartels and the daily traffic across his property.
We visited a section of the recently-constructed border wall. There was a 60-yard gap in it. When the Biden Administration began, they halted all construction, full stop. Now, there is an inexplicable and embarrassing patch where the wall simply does not exist. It is apparent leaving this gap had a lot more to do with politics than anything approaching effectiveness or common sense.
Next, we talked with a Border Patrol chief, who oversaw one of the 9 border sections until last year, when he retired after more than 25 years patrolling the border. He broke out the 30,000 Border Patrol encounters from last week, from got-aways (seen, not arrested), to deported (20%) to released into the community (40%). 109 pounds of fentanyl was seized last week from these folks, enough to kill every South Dakotan twenty-seven times. He detailed the dramatic increase – of more than fifty times – in encounters from fall 2020 to spring 2022 in his section. The border had been stabilized and is now anything but.
The most important thing he relayed to us is the importance of a secure border between ports of entry. The got-aways and undetected migrants are the drug runners and human traffickers. Ordinary folks seeking asylum will just use the port of entry, or cross and seek a Border Patrol agent to begin their asylum claim process. Leaving the border between ports of entry unsecured means the Border Patrol is distracted from its mission to protect us from ‘bad hombres’ and instead has to focus on immigrants, which is supposed to be the job of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). In short – there is no humanitarian argument for an unsecure border. We need to finish the wall, and add monitoring infrastructure to get control of our border.
Our final stop was at Catholic Charities, who host a humanitarian respite center. Families traveling with children can stay there for 24-48 hours, to get their bus tickets, plane tickets, or other logistics in order to meet their American sponsor. At the center, we saw hundreds of children with their parents. Having young kids of our own, the experience was an emotional one.
We learned that these folks, who were finger-printed and logged before their release, could not apply for a work permit for four months and that the application takes two or three months to process. So, we are leaving these folks in America with a sponsor and no ability to legally make any money for at least six months. Our goal should be to get these folks working and self-sufficient as quickly as possible. If they aren’t self-sufficient, they’ll either break the law or be dependent on the cartels or the government. Those are all the worst outcomes. This is another area that is completely inexplicable and should be fixed.
Living and governing in South Dakota, we’re a long way from the border. But, we are short-sighted and naïve if we think the mass influx of immigrants across our southern border does not affect us. What happens in Texas today will affect South Dakota tomorrow. The added perspective has solidified our belief that the border needs to be secured immediately and that all processes should lead to work and self-sufficiency for anyone we let in. Our eyes are open to the challenges, and opportunities for solutions, at the border.
State Rep Brandi Schaefbauer is reposting some local loopy internet paranoia claiming states are going to fall like “dominions.” How exactly does a dominion fall? As opposed to those little black things called dominoes that actually do fall.
