McCaskill: Border resources don't square with drug crisis

The expanded staffing made available for increased border protection might not be sufficient to curtail an American drug crisis, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill told the Homeland Security secretary Tuesday.

The Democratic lawmaker confronted Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen during a Capitol Hill hearing on authorities and resources the cabinet member needs to operate her department.

McCaskill cited Homeland Security statistics in noting that 90 percent of opioid drugs being smuggled into the United States are seized at ports of entry rather than in illegal crossings in remote locations. However, the Trump administration and Neilsen’s department have requested hundreds of additional positions for agents to patrol the borders while remaining shorthanded by 4,000 officers at ports of entry.

“Whenever there is this talking point that there are people coming across the southern border that are bringing in all the drugs, it’s like fingernails on a blackboard, because it’s just not accurate,” McCaskill said while questioning Nielsen.

“There has been zero requests for additional port officers, zero, to be used at these critical places.”

The hearing, though previously scheduled, comes in the aftermath of a dispute that arose last week between Nielsen and President Trump, who criticized her at a cabinet meeting for a lack of progress in securing the nation’s borders.

The Homeland Security Department has under its umbrella the Customs and Border Protection agency.

Nielsen told McCaskill that additional technology and canines proved more effective tools leading to drug seizures at the ports of entry.

“We’re attacking the opioid crisis from many, many levels of many capabilities,” the cabinet secretary responded. “Far, far and away, the best way to detect the drugs coming through the ports is through that non-intrusive technology and through canines.”

The Missourian said that in September 2016, there were 19,828 Border Patrol agents along the American borders. In April 2018, that number had diminished by more than 400 agents even though the department had a budget authorization for 21,370.

“We keep debating additional authorizations as if that’s somehow going to solve the problem,” McCaskill said. “You can’t keep up with attrition right now.”

Nielsen said her department has been attacking the problem, including with deployment of National Guard units to the border last month.

She added, “If you try to enter our country without authorization, you’ve broken the law. The attorney general has declared that we will have zero tolerance for all illegal border crossings, and I stand by that.”

McCaskill sits as the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said Nielsen’s department is encumbered by policies that fail to discourage illegal border crossings.

“Unfortunately, you are forced to apprehend, process and disperse, and that is a huge incentive for additional illegal immigration,” he told the cabinet secretary.