(The Center Square) – Worsening conditions at the United States border are impacting North Carolina and Wednesday drew a formal call for the governor’s office to take action.
Republicans in the state House of Representatives, in a letter to him, say Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper should work with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to assign additional North Carolina National Guardsmen with the Texas National Guard to secure the border; take action to lessen the state as a place to attract migrants; and require law enforcement cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“This is his chance to do the right thing,” said House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. “If not, we’ll be back in short session in a couple of months and we’ll take action to mandate it.”
Moore, last year, visited guardsmen in Eagle Pass, Texas. He said Wednesday there are 125 assigned to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He said they were “under ineffectual federal authority,” which is why all 72 Republicans in the House signing the letter are requesting they be switched to assignment with Texas.
“This is a clear and present danger to our country,” Moore said. “Why is the state Legislature weighing in? Because North Carolina is now a border state. They’re not staying in Texas. They’re moving all across the country.”
Moore explained what he saw while visiting the border. Those detained, he said, were given some money and told to come back in five years for a court date, adding, “It’s a joke.” He also said drugs of all types are coming through, usually through use of a diversion – a large group crossing where there is no wall or barrier that President Joe Biden stopped from being built – that takes border resources while people with the drugs from cartels come in at another point.
Rep. Donna McDowell, R-Johnston, spoke near the end. She said through law enforcement at various levels, school administrators and parents, she’s learned that fifth-graders are vaping with drugs that trace back to Mexican cartels.
“It’s four times as strong as the marijuana” that might be found or grown domestically, she said. “Kids are going home drunk and high. It tracks back to the cartels.”
Moore said it’s not a Republican talking point, that Democrats and those unaffiliated with the two major political parties are talking about the situation. He left no doubt the “crisis” was because of the president and his decisions.
“The federal government is not enforcing the border laws,” Moore said. “The Biden administration has utterly failed to secure our border.”
Nine months from Election Day and just under five weeks from the state’s primaries, the border was moved squarely in front of voters as a campaign issue. The letter and press conference came one day after a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, for the first time in 150 years, recommended two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for “willful and systematic” refusal to enforce immigration law.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 371,036 illegal crossings in December. In 2021, the same month’s report was 73,414. That’s a 405% jump. The datasets do not include gotaways, a term for those who cross and evade capture and for which statistics are not publicly reported.
The Center Square, through sources, has reported those numbers for more than two years. From Jan. 1, 2021, to Sept. 30, 2023, gotaways numbered an estimated 1.7 million. In October, with the close of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, the estimate of people living in or entering the country illegally was more than 10 million since Biden took office in January 2021.
Four months later, given the December record report, it’s likely soared past 11 million.
