Border security is turning into a key issue in the 2024 Presidential race.
TMJ4's Chief Political reporter Charles Benson talked with Arizona County Sheriff Mark Dannels about how the problem is not just a border state crisis.
Milwaukee is about 2000 miles away from a section of the U-S Mexico border, south of Tucson in Cochise County but the Sheriff there - Mark Dannels says the impact of the border crisis can be felt on any street in Wisconsin.
"Whether that's through illicit drugs for the poisonings, whether it's the same sex trafficking, human trafficking, whatever it may be, it's not staying in my community, said Sheriff Dannels. It comes to communities throughout the United States."
Sheriff Dannels was in Brookfield for a Lincoln Day dinner speech over the weekend.
Border patrol says illegal crossings - not just in Arizona - surged to record numbers arrested last December with nearly 250,000 people arrested on the southern border.
FBI Director Chris Wray told a senator panel this week that his agency seized enough fentanyl over two years to kill 270 million people.
Sadly, Sheriff Dannels believes - despite law enforcement's best efforts - 90% of drugs are still getting into the country.
"Then you look at 1000s and 1000s of communities, families, and kids in our country that are being impacted and killed, poisoned. We need to be talking about that," said Sheriff Dannels
Dannels say the cartels have created what he calls 'modern-day slavery' by charging people thousands of dollars to cross the border.
"They don't have that money, which then they become servitude to the cartels, whether it be sex trafficking, drugs, enforcement, gangs, whatever it may be. It's not the American Dream that we all talk about."
The Republican-elected sheriff says the solution isn't just building a wall or more funding for more customs and border patrol agents.
He says it starts with enforcing the law.
"No more asylum claims and simply put, enforce the rule of law. If you don't come through the port of entry or illegal ingress, you're denied and expelled immediately. That's the law."
A February Marquette Law School national poll showed voters overwhelmingly believed former President Donald Trump would be better on immigration and border security issues than President Biden by a 53%-25% margin.
To view the poll, click here.
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