Daines Slams Reversal of Title 42 Increasing Illegal Immigration

Montana Senator Steve Daines appeared this week at a committee hearing in which he severely criticized the Biden Administration’s plan to reverse Title 42, thus opening the southern border to even more illegal immigration and more illegal drugs.

“I want to talk about Title 42 for a moment,” began Senator Daines. “In Montana, we're a northern border state, and you're probably wondering why is a northern border state raising the question about what's going on the southern border? Well, it's because we're a northern border state with a southern border crisis. Our communities in Montana have been devastated by the inflow of drugs, particularly Mexican cartel meth, and now fentanyl as well as heroin.”

Daines emphasized the point that Montana law enforcement personnel are being overwhelmed by illegal drugs flooding across the southern border and making their way to Montana.

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“What's happening is that our border patrol agents are overwhelmed by the flood of illegals coming across our southern border,” he said. “It's a zero sum game. It's a zero sum battle because the resources are being used to apprehend the illegals coming across and they can't spend the time they need to stop the drugs that are flooding across the southern border by these Mexican cartels.”

Daines also blamed the meteoric rise in violent crime in Montana on the increase in illegal immigration on the southern border.

“With this drug crisis that we see in Montana comes as well a massive increase in violent crime, nearly all of which, if you speak with law enforcement on the ground, is tied directly to the drugs flowing across the southern border,” he said.

Daines then tied the removal of Title 42 to what could be a disastrous increase in the flow of illegal immigrants and the drugs they transport for Mexican cartels.

“Now instead of being tough on the border, this administration has taken an outrageous step of ending title 42 removals,” he said. “There was a southern border Sheriff here last week who said we have a crisis on our hands today. However, removing these Title 42 provisions turns that into a disaster. It's been widely reported the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is making preparations for as many as 18,000 illegal immigrants per day.”

Title 42 expulsions are removals by the U.S. government of persons who have recently been in a country where a communicable disease was present. The extent of authority for contagion-related expulsions is set out by law.