Biden’s indifference to the border crisis, crime is hurting Montana

The crisis at our southern border is raging on, although you wouldn’t know it from watching the evening news or looking at the front pages of the papers. Along with attorneys general from other states, I recently visited the Rio Grande Valley Sector in Texas to see the border for myself and hear directly from public safety officials who are dealing with the crisis every day. What I saw and heard was eye-opening -- and it’s harming Montana communities.

At the behest of President Biden and his administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is playing catch-and-release with migrants who have criminal records. Federal data shows that more than 270,000 illegal immigrants were released into our country without a court date in a span of just five months last year. While law enforcement is intercepting a staggering amount of dangerous drugs like methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin at the border, an even greater amount is making it across.

Once drugs enter the country, they can be smuggled into Montana within 48 hours. Data from our Forensic Science Division show fentanyl-linked deaths increased 116% in Montana in 2020, while the number of postmortem cases with identified methamphetamine in the blood also more than doubled that year.

As Montana’s attorney general, I’m taking action to force President Biden to uphold the law and lessen the impacts of drugs and crime on Montana communities.

First, we’re fighting President Biden’s dangerous immigration policies in court. In November, I filed a lawsuit to stop the non-enforcement policy that ties the hands of immigration officers and halts nearly all deportations – even for criminals and when federal immigration courts have already ordered their removal from the United States. Immigration arrests and deportations were slashed and deportable criminal aliens were released from jails.

Last month, we filed a lawsuit against the Central American Minor (CAM) program that incentivizes illegal immigration. This Obama-era program – which President Trump eliminated – was sold as a means to decrease the number of children coming to the border, but it failed to do so. If the Obama policy opened the door, President Biden’s reincarnation blows the door off the hinges by releasing illegal immigrants and then allowing them to bring additional people here.

Every man hour that Customs and Border Patrol agents spend apprehending and processing illegal border crossers is time they don’t spend on stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the country. As a result of the increase, states like Texas have stepped up by building their own sections of a border wall and patrolling the Rio Grande themselves.

Montana is also having to fight our share of the battle here. The increase in violent crime over the last several years is directly linked to the proliferation of drugs in our state. As head of the Montana Department of Justice, I'm also getting additional resources into the field to help law enforcement across our state.

We’ve converted two desk jobs at a regulatory division into slots for narcotics agents to increase capacity for investigations and work with multi-agency anti-drug task forces. A proposal signed last month by Governor Greg Gianforte will fund three more investigators at our agency. Last year, I advocated and secured $300,000 from the state legislature for a grant program to replace drug-detecting canines. As a result, 23 new canines and their handlers will soon be on patrol in Montana with police departments, county sheriff’s offices, and a tribal law enforcement agency.

Law enforcement officers in Montana are doing what they can to combat drugs trafficked across the southern border and the resulting crime, but we’re fighting an uphill battle until the federal government does its job to secure the border and enforce immigration laws. I am not deterred by President Biden’s indifference to the border crisis and the fallout in our state. I’ll keep fighting in court to reverse his dangerous immigration policies and working with other Montana law enforcement agencies to keep our communities safe.

Attorney General Austin Knudsen, Montana Department of Justice