More than two dozen GOP governors have signed up to push back against the Biden administration’s border chaos, forming the American Governors Border Strike Force to share intelligence on threats to their communities that come across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Republican governors pledged to track and share analysis of state-level crimes connected to border security, and to try to target the financing and mobility of cartels that smuggle people and drugs across the border and deep into America’s heartland.
Led by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the two Republicans with pieces of the U.S.-Mexico boundary, the strike force includes governors of 24 other states. They said they were forced to step in to plug holes in border security created by President Biden’s policies, which have erased most of former President Trump’s get-tough measures.
“The American Governors’ Border Strike Force will serve as a force multiplier in the fight against criminal activity directly tied to our border. My thanks to my fellow governors who saw the problem and chose to be part of the solution,” Mr. Ducey said.
Governors and local law enforcement officials across the country have been alarmed by a massive surge in the availability of fentanyl, most of which is flowing across the southern border, and which is sending drug overdose deaths to new records.
Local sheriffs say they can see the reach of the cartels into their communities.
SEE ALSO: Top Republican calls for troops at border as illegal immigrant surge goes global
“If a person is selling heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamines, he’s working for the cartel. I don’t even ask the question anymore,” Sam S. Page, sheriff in Rockingham County, North Carolina, told The Washington Times earlier this year.
In addition to Arizona and Texas, the governors in the strike force are from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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