Sen. James Lankford to Newsmax: Guard 'Force Multiplier' at Border

Border Patrol agents have been grateful for states to step up and deploy National Guard forces to the southern border left open by the Biden administration, according to Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., on Newsmax.

"When I talked Border Patrol folks that are on the border, they're grateful for the National Guard actually being there, for the Texas National Guard that's been there for a long time, because they increase their manpower for them," Lankford told Thursday's "National Report."

Mexican drug and human cartels are smuggling across the border, using pedestrian illegal border crossers to divert attention from the most malign trafficking operations, Lankford said to co-hosts Shaun Kraisman and Emma Rechenberg.

"They'll shoot across folks with camouflage and backpacks and bring in drugs," he said. "When the National Guard is there, it is a force multiplier for them to get into some of those areas that they can't get into, as they're doing a humanitarian mission with other folks.

"So the Border Patrol is very grateful for the presence of the National Guard, and these National Guard folks are ready to be able to step up and protect our country from drugs, from human trafficking and, quite frankly, just help protect our nation from security risks that we don't know from people crossing into our country."

President Joe Biden's Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is cooking the illegal border crossing numbers with the CBP One app, so it can get away with leaving the border open for illegals, Lankford lamented.

"The Border Patrol will tell you, the border is secure, it's just secure on the south side of the border," Lankford said. "The cartels are dominating and control that border."

Mayorkas' DHS officials are working as "hotel check-in staff at this point."

"Ali Mayorkas and DHS has changed the way that they're counting people, saying you're free to check in on an app first, so we don't count you as an illegal crossing," he said. "And then they announced that their numbers are way down."

Regardless of whether those checked in on the app are not counted as an illegal entry now, "you're still released into the country; you're still over here for 5-10 years before you get a court hearing," Lankford said. "Nothing is really different."

Lankford serves in the Senate, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., are health-stricken, but voters should decide their fate, not calls for removal.

"The voters in those states actually determined who represents them, and they'll continue to be able to make that decision," Lankford concluded. "That's a protected right of our republic."

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