(The Center Square) – Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Mark Dannels said he’s never been able to meet with President Joe Biden or his border czar, Vice President Kamala Harris, the entire time they’ve been in office.
Biden, Harris and Congress aren’t helping his deputies, who are risking their lives fighting cartel crime, he said, adding “nobody’s listening.”
Dannels on Thursday welcomed to Arizona former President Donald Trump, who he said “was always there for us.” At a news conference in Montezuma Pass, Dannels described the dangerous conditions working at the Arizona-Mexico border and the cost to county residents.
“My community's tired,” he said. “My community's frustrated over the last three and a half years with what we've dealt with … when it comes to crime and the policies that have failed this country; the policies have failed our citizens, and the tragedies that my neighbors are addressing silently, because nobody's listening.”
Over the last 31 months, his office booked 3,762 people in the county jail for border-related crimes.
“These are not immigration issues. These are border-related crimes, with double digit murders,” Dannels, who is also the chairman of the National Sheriff’s Association for Border Security, said.
The financial cost to county taxpayers is $12.5 million and they’ve received nothing from the federal government, he said.
He also described how under Biden-Harris, Arizona became the gateway for fentanyl smuggling, trafficking and distribution into the United States.
“When President Trump took office six years ago, you never heard much about fentanyl,” he said. Under the Biden-Harris administration, Arizona is the epicenter for fentanyl being smuggled into the country, he said. “You wonder where the epidemic is coming from, it's the Mexican cartels who have been allowed to commit these crimes.”
The Center Square has for years reported on the increase of fentanyl pouring into the country and the efforts of local, state and federal agents to seize it nationwide and in Arizona.
In July, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized nearly 1,000 pounds of fentanyl in Nogales, Arizona, the largest seizure in CBP history. With two milligrams considered a lethal dose, the amount seized was enough to kill nearly 227 million people.
This is after Nogales CBP agents in June seized enough lethal drugs to kill 28.5 million people and after Tucson CBP agents seized enough fentanyl and methamphetamine to kill nearly 4 billion people in fiscal 2023.
In one federal operation, federal agents from CBP Tucson and Yuma sectors seized over one ton of fentanyl, enough to kill over 453 million people.
These busts exclude the record amounts local law enforcement are seizing, including hundreds of pounds of fentanyl and meth in single traffic stops that could kill entire towns.
They are making these busts despite staffing and funding shortages, Dannels said.
“Thanks to 51% of Congress, we have cut our DEA budget in this country. We have less DEA agents in Arizona than we ever had before, and we lead the nation with fentanyl.”
Despite lack of resources and less support, they’re still risking their lives to fight crime, he said. Along the mountain range nearby, he said a Border Patrol agent was attacked early in the morning by two migrants who illegally entered from Mexico “who tried to cut his throat.”
Near the Rio Grande River just behind them, he said, “we had the cartels trying to kidnap my deputies, my border team, to torture them. We had the cartel come across the border early in the morning to kidnap and kill one of my deputies because they're allowed to think that way.”
In another instance, he described one of his deputies barely surviving being hit by a smuggler driving 100 miles an hour.
“My deputies, troopers, agents and officers in this county have endured more harm by the hands of the cartels and no one is addressing the cartels except local law enforcement and our agents and our troopers,” Dannels said.
Despite his best effort, calls to meet with the administration went unanswered, he said. “We had tried everything to meet with President Biden and Vice President Harris, the border czar” and nothing happened.
By contrast, “when President Trump was president, I was at the White House more than you could think of. He was always there for us,” Dannels said.
Turning to Trump, he said the Cochise County community “and our law enforcement professionals will never give up hope. To us, hope is confidence. Hope is commitment. Hope is courage and your visit today renews our hope.”
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