Illicit Fentanyl Crossing Our Border

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, in 2022, more than 100,000 Americans lost their lives due to an overdose.

Sadly, nearly 70 percent of those deaths involved some form of illicit fentanyl. These drugs, which are created in China and then manufactured, compounded in Mexico and then trafficked across our open southern border, took the lives of enough Americans to fill Beaver Stadium at Penn State University.

These deaths are the result of a southern border that has been thrown open to cartels and their operations by a President who refuses to enforce our laws. By inviting mass illegal immigration, President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas has stretched our border resources too thin and allowed the cartels to move their deadly drugs with impunity.

It is time to pass a border bill that will fully fund the resources that our Border Patrol agents so desperately need. It is time to return to the remain in Mexico policy, and it is time to put a stop to the fentanyl poisonings that have taken far too many American lives. Runaway Spending

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Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, last week during the State of the Union Address, the American people saw a campaign speech, not a plan to fix the economy that President Biden's failed policies has left in shambles.

In the first 2 years of his disastrous administration, President Biden passed reckless spending bills that sent inflation soaring by 17 percent.

Today, a mother visiting the grocery store will find that the price of juice is up 30 percent, the cost of beef is up 10 percent, vegetables are up 5 percent, and the price of bread is up 3 percent.

Ultimately, these costs add up. Over the course of a year, the average American family is paying an additional $11,000 just to afford the basics that they need. Pennsylvanians cannot afford the government red tape in spending that has caused this runaway inflation. Pennsylvanians and all Americans certainly cannot afford the budget that President Biden is proposing, which would only amount to yet another year of runaway spending. Surging Violent Crime

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Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, as crimes continue to surge in cities across the U.S., it has become clear that calls to defund the police and attempts to interfere with law enforcement have put our communities and our families in danger. Across 32 major cities, car thefts have increased by 33 percent, and here in Washington, D.C., carjackings are up nearly 100 percent.

Sadly, President Biden has ignored this crime wave and has refused to address the victims who now worry about living in their own homes.

Surging violent crimes in our cities makes all Americans more vulnerable, and it is time for radical Members of this body to finally show their support of police officers.

It is time for us to send a clear message that we will always stand with the men and women in blue.

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