Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) on Tuesday turned the tables on Republicans during a hearing of the House Oversight Committee.
In particular, Porter zeroed in on fentanyl seizures at the United States-Mexico border and pointed to a large jump in seizures that she said occurred around June of 2020.
She then asked Chief Border Patrol Agent John Modlin if he could identify the cause of the surge in fentanyl seizures, to which he replied that he had no idea.
Porter then pointed out that it should be seen as a success that the federal government has succeeded in seizing more fentanyl to keep it out of American communities.
“For me, as a mom, that is a sign of success,” she said. “I don’t want that fentanyl in this country. It is dangerous and kills people and makes our community dangerous. And to me, this is a sign that our Border Patrol and our agents… are doing their jobs. What I find interesting is, despite success here, what we are seeing is an effort to characterize seizures as failures.”
Republicans have for the last several months used high fentanyl seizures to attack the Biden administration for lax border enforcement, even though such seizures mean that fentanyl will not be making its way into American communities.