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Floor Speech

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Mr. RICKETTS. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in talking about the fentanyl crisis that Joe Biden created in our country.

Joe Biden had 4 years of open border policies. Millions of people crossed illegally into our country. But on top of that, we saw a surge of fentanyl coming into our country--fentanyl that is killing our young people.

My colleague from Florida just referenced 70,000 people dying from fentanyl. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death among our young people age 18 to 45.

That fentanyl starts in communist China, where the precursors are made. It then gets shipped to Mexico. The cartels turn it into that final product and bring it across the border.

And we saw the impact in Nebraska. In 2019, law enforcement in Nebraska took 46 pills--just 46 pills--laced with fentanyl off of our streets. But after Joe Biden got elected, in just the first 6 months of 2021, that number jumped to 151,000 pills.

And it wasn't just the numbers; it was the human cost.

Taryn Lee Griffith is a young mom with two children. She took a pill she thought was Percocet, but it was laced with fentanyl. She died that night. Now her children are going to have to learn about their mom from stories, from pictures because they don't have their mom anymore.

Sadly, that story is being told all across this country because of the fentanyl crisis that we have. President Trump was elected to stop this crisis. I mean, think about it. If we had had 70,000 Americans killed in a terrorist attack, we would be up in arms. It is more than are dying from car accidents or heart disease in that age bracket, and yet Joe Biden did nothing.

And President Trump got elected to stop it, to make a difference, to end this catastrophe. One of the ways he is doing that is by putting tariffs on the countries that are allowing this to ship through their countries, across their borders.

I already mentioned how communist China and Mexico are linked to this. There was a daily podcast from the New York Times that talked about how President Trumps' policies are really having an impact on Mexico.

Some people have said: Wait. Using tariffs, that is creating a trade war.

That is absolutely not the case. The case is this is a drug war, and the President is using the tool of tariffs to get a handle on it, to shut off the flow of fentanyl.

In just 1 month under Joe Biden, law enforcement intercepted 1,400 pounds of fentanyl coming into our country--1 month. That is enough to kill 300 million Americans. President Trump is using his powers to bring that to an end.

Now, some people have said: Well, that is fine. We get it, Mexico. But what about Canada? Canada is not the problem here.

But our northern border is also exposed. When Canada released or eased up on some of its visa restrictions, the cartels saw their advantage and started moving operations to Canada to transport both people illegally across the border and fentanyl.

In fact, 60 Minutes just did a story where they talked to one of these cartel drug smugglers about what he was doing, and he said that-- this one smuggler--he was responsible for moving 30 kilograms of fentanyl across the border from Canada into the United States every month. That is enough to kill 15 million Americans, and he was doing it every month--and that was one smuggler.

Now he also said that, lately, it had been quiet. They hadn't been moving as much fentanyl. And, again, that gets back to President Trump taking a stand to get our neighboring countries to start enforcing their border, to put more resources there, and to start blocking this fentanyl before it gets into our country.

These policies are having an impact. They are working. We need Canada and Mexico to continue to do more. President Trump is using his powers to be able to help stop that flow of fentanyl.

We are here standing up for secure borders, standing up for American families, standing up for those families who have lost loved ones already to this terrible scourge. We cannot afford to return to an open borders policy. We have to have secure borders. The stakes are too high. Too many lives have already been lost.

President Trump is leading the fight to secure our borders and stop the flow of this horrible drug into our country, and I am proud to support him in doing that.

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