Some Voters Do the Research
Leave it to a Republican candidate to skew the facts to fit his agenda by conveniently leaving out critical factual details so as to distort reality —an all too common political strategy of deception for political gain. Is there little surprise that the vast majority of Americans can’t trust a politician (from either party) as far as they can throw them?
What these politicians never seem to understand is that there are a great many a voter who actually do real research. That many voters don’t succumb to mainstream media bias and right- or left-wing propaganda. That we do indeed study the facts, do the research, and pay attention to what is really happening in our country.
As Thomas Cole, a Republican candidate for Congressional District 24, states in his recent letter to the Independent: “No searches of their packs or suitcases occurred,” “At night the cartel brings in more people under darkness. They are picked up at the highway, and that is where much of our illegal drugs are coming from.” Sorry, but this isn’t quite correct and typically misleading.
Yes, hundreds of migrants continue to illegally cross the border into California near the remote town of Jacumba Hot Springs almost daily, who then gather at an unofficial camp to wait for Border Patrol.
From there, they cross into the U.S. and walk approximately a mile to the camp where humanitarian charity workers offer them water and shelters from the elements. Customs and Border Protection officers then arrive and line the migrants and their packs up for inspection. They are then transported to a facility closer to San Diego, which is 60 miles away, where they are processed, with the majority then released into the U.S. to start their asylum claims.
There’s no “free-for-all” at this particular crossing as the letter would have you think. Is it still an immigration problem? Of course it is! But it’s not a main cartel drug crossing.
As far as drugs are concerned, much of the problem is that chemicals and tools to make dangerous drugs are coming into the U.S. from locations such as East Asia through legitimate means — cargo on airplanes, ships, and express couriers — and those items many times go to locations in Mexico, where the finished products are made and smuggled across the southwest border right through customs checkpoints.
Having migrants walking drugs across the border wouldn’t be nearly enough in bulk to satisfy any cartel’s financial interests. Are drugs carried across the southern border regardless? Sadly yes, but not in vast quantities and nowhere near the amount that is causing the drug epidemic in America.
Mr. Cole could use an education in fact checking before proclaiming falsities, but unfortunately that’s not the modus operandi of Republican politics these days.