MILWAUKEE – On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, hosted a roundtable on the crisis at the southern border to discuss the unprecedented flood of illegal immigrants, the deadly effects of unregulated fentanyl and the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border. Sen. Johnson was joined by the former Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan, President of the National Border Patrol Council Brandon Judd, Founder of Saving Others For Archie Lauri Badura, Green Lake County Sheriff Mark Podoll, Washington County Sheriff Martin Schulteis and Fond du Lac County Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt.

Watch the full roundtable here. Highlights can be found below.

Sen. Johnson on the disturbing realities of Biden’s border crisis

“You have to go down to the border to really experience what I think every American really needs to understand. It's profoundly disturbing. Last time I was down there, we immediately went on a night-time patrol with Brandon [Judd] and other border patrol agents. And we immediately encountered a small group, and we came across a number of children. There was little six and a little seven-year old girl – they were unaccompanied minors. First thing you notice is they just have this little baggie, had a birth certificate and a card, a notecard, with a phone number and an address – no identification. If those unaccompanied children had lost that, they'd have been completely lost. Fortunately for those two little girls, they were put together with another group that didn't abuse them. We had Bill Melugin from Fox News with our group, and he relayed to us that – I don't know how much earlier weeks or whatever – it was the exact same spot two little girls about the same age, were being treated for being brutally raped from their human traffickers. So those are the realities that are being overlooked, those are the realities that are being ignored, those are the realities that are being caused by this open-border policy of this administration.”

Sheriff Mark Podoll on the impact of Biden’s border crisis on Wisconsin

“Wisconsin is a border state. We are getting everything that comes through that open border. And if people don't believe that, they need to pull their head out of the sand because it's happening here.” 

Lauri Badura on losing her son to a fentanyl overdose

“My son, absolutely, was a victim of bad policy. It’s tough to sit here and look at that [chart]. It makes you mad. My son, his name’s Archie. I lost him in 2014. Never in my life would I have expected that this is how my family – I would have one child left – his name is Augie. He’s 25. It was a substance that was laced with fentanyl. In 2014, you didn’t hear of that. That wasn’t happening. It was a very terrible spot to be in at that time.

“Since 2014, eight years, I never expected we would be where we are. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to be as involved as I am now. I’m more involved than I’ve ever been.”

Brandon Judd on Democrat political rhetoric increasing illegal crossings

“We're gonna give you the evidence right here that this was based on rhetoric, that this increase [in illegal crossings] was based on rhetoric. When Border Patrol would take individuals into custody, we are then required to then interview these individuals and they're supposed to be required to ask why are you coming? What is the reason that you're coming? And in the documentation, they would tell us over and over again, that they were coming because they knew that they will ultimately be released, that the cartels were advertising their services around the world, that they were ultimately going to be released come 2020.”

Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt on fentanyl laced drugs coming across the southern border

“The people that are consuming these drugs, they think ‘I'm only taking LSD,’ ‘I’m only taking cocaine,’ ‘I’m only taking mushrooms,’ ‘I’m only taking ecstasy’ but the reality is you have a high probability of also consuming fentanyl. And it may very well be a deadly dose because obviously, none of these drugs are FDA regulated. The testing, you can't count on what's in it, you can't count on who's selling it to you being accurate and whether or not this dose is going to be lethal. And what we're seeing is drug traffickers now willing to travel to border states to buy particularly M30 pills, that's the street name is M30 and it’s stamped with an M on one side and 30 on the other side, but it's these little blue pills that are actually counterfeit oxycodone, they're manufactured to look like oxycodone and they're coming up here and we're seizing them with our canines detecting them and our drug task forces detecting them primarily on the interstate or seizing them by the thousands. And these drug traffickers tell us they're willing to risk going to border states, because down there, they can buy these pills for 10 or 20 cents a pill and they can sell them in Northeast Wisconsin for $30 to $40 a pill so the return on investment is well worth it in their mind. It is well worth the risk to travel to these border states, pick these drugs up and with the border being an open sieve right now, the drug manufacturers in Mexico are not worried and not spending any time or energy or effort or resources on how they're going to get the drugs across the border.”

Mark Morgan on violent crime committed by got-a-ways

“Let’s be honest. There are murderers, rapists, pedophiles, aggravated felons and gang members. Now I’m not saying every single one of those million are bad people, but there are countless that are. The question is, how many is enough? How many murderers are you okay with being a part of those million got-a-ways? How many pedophiles, rapists and gang members are you okay with being a part of that million?”

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