Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt told Newsmax Thursday that solving the southern border crisis has become a “bipartisan issue” that is “not about immigration.”
“Now, I believe this is a bipartisan issue,” Stitt said during an appearance on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “You're seeing cities that are overrun with illegal immigration. The taxation and the social services are just being overwhelmed, especially in some of our larger cities, and so I think people are really getting fed up with it.”
Led by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Republican governors in recent months have been transporting migrants from the southern border to Democrat-run cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, which has struggled to absorb the 100,000 migrants that have surged into the Big Apple and exhausted the city’s shelter system.
“There's 29 points of entry,” Stitt said. “All we're doing is telling folks that you have to go through the legal way and we're protecting that border. We don't understand why the policy's changed. If you want to come legally to our country, there's a right way to do it. We need to reinstitute the "Remain in Mexico" policy, during the Trump era that we had in place, because Biden canceled that day one in office, and that's created this mass migration now into our country. It’s overwhelming our southern border and you're seeing it all across our country.”
The Oklahoma governor said the border crisis goes beyond illegal immigration and discussed the impact of fentanyl flowing into his state via the U.S.-Mexico border.
“This is about border security, knowing who's coming into our border,” Stitt said. “We're protecting our communities. Fentanyl deaths have gone up over 1,000% in Oklahoma. In June alone, over 2,000 pounds of fentanyl were captured on our southern border and so I don't understand why this is becoming political. I think the American people are pretty frustrated, and I'm down there with our troops right now, just trying to enforce the law, just making people go through the legal checkpoints instead of illegally entering our country. It makes common sense to me and Oklahomans and most Americans and so I don't understand what's happening with the Biden administration on this issue.”
“We had 46 fentanyl deaths in Oklahoma in 2019,” he said. “We had over 600 in 2022. So we're seeing this exponential growth in fentanyl that’s hitting our state. All of our law enforcement is letting me know where it's coming in and so I have an obligation and a duty to protect the citizens of Oklahoma. That's exactly what the Republican governors are doing right now at the southern border in support of Gov. Abbott.”