South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson discusses his time at the southern border

(KSFY)
Published: Apr. 19, 2019 at 9:16 PM CDT
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It’s been a busy couple of days for South Dakota representative Dusty Johnson as he toured the U.S. Mexico border.

“This is a national crisis,” South Dakota representative Dusty Johnson said. “I mean we have 100,000 people a month being apprehended at our southern border.”

For days, Johnson toured the U.S. Mexico border.

“The number of people that we are apprehending at the southern border has almost doubled in just the last two months,” Johnson said. “So this is a rapidly evolving national security and humanitarian issue.”

Johnson echoed President Trumps statement, calling it a crisis at the border.

“What comes through loud and clear is that our systems are overwhelmed,” Johnson said. “What we are doing today is not working and we really really need congress to get engaged and do their job on border security.”

Even though the border is thousands of miles away, he said people here at home should care about what’s happening.

“95 percent of the meth that enters this country comes up from the southern border,” Johnson said. “That’s why we all need to worry about it. We do have a crisis when it comes to drugs in this country. That impacts all of us even if we are more than a thousand miles away from the border.”

Johnson says his trip to the border doesn’t change the way he looks at these issues from a bigger perspective.

He’s long known that there is a crisis and that a physical barrier is part of the answer, but he now has a deeper understanding of just how big the problem really is.

“It’s not just going to be a wall Johnson said. “It’s not just going to be technology. It’s not just going to be law enforcement agents. It’s going to be all of those things put together. Then we have a real shot at making a real dent in this problem.”

On the trip Johnson was able to talk to U.S. customs agents, border patrol agents, land owners, and people who had been apprehended at the border.