Senator Ricketts’ Weekly Column: The Border Catastrophe Hurts Nebraska

Our country faces a safety, drug, and humanitarian catastrophe at the southern border. Yet the impacts of it are felt much closer to home. Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration’s open borders policy has encouraged more than 10 million people to try to cross the border illegally. Violent criminals, suspected terrorists, and deadly drugs like fentanyl have poured in. Even when these people are apprehended, the Biden administration is often releasing many of them into our country. Once released, illegal aliens can go anywhere in the U.S. This has made every state, including Nebraska, a border state. The consequences can be devastating.

Take the case of Alvaro Gomez-Lopez. He illegally crossed the border in 2023 and he settled in Lancaster County. From there, he arranged for an underage girl to be trafficked from Guatemala to Nebraska without her consent. Gomez-Lopez then physically and sexually abused her. Additionally, she was forced to work against her will and deprived of food for five days. Gomez-Lopez was arrested for his crimes and charged with child abuse and sexual assault. But this horrific situation could have been avoided if we had a secure border.

The Biden-Harris open border policies also allow criminals to re-enter even after they’ve been deported. That’s what happened with Jorge Miranda-Funes. In 2022, he was convicted of Attempted Child Abuse in Douglas County. After serving his sentence in that case, he was deported to El Salvador. Just a few months later, he again illegally crossed the border and returned to Omaha. For two months after that, this convicted sex offender walked Omaha’s streets. Thankfully, law enforcement managed to arrest him before more damage could be done. He should never have been able to return to Nebraska in the first place!

Our border crisis is also enabling record amounts of deadly drugs to come to our communities. In 2022 law enforcement found 10,000 fentanyl pills in Alejandro Berrelleza-Bojorquez and Orlando Castro-Gutierrez’s vehicle. They also found 15,000 pills containing a fentanyl analogue and a one kilogram-sized brick containing fentanyl. They were arrested in Dawson County in 2022. The two men will be deported after completing 76-month prison sentences.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), one kilogram of fentanyl – the same size as the brick found in Dawson County – has the potential to kill as many as 500,000 people. That’s more than 25% of Nebraska’s population. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for young people aged 18-45. It’s killing Nebraskans like Taryn Lee Griffith. Taryn was a mom of two young girls. She died in 2021 after taking a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl.

The Biden-Harris administration’s open borders policies fail to protect Nebraskans like Taryn and the victims of these other crimes. Instead, they’ve spent over three and a half years facilitating criminal entry into our country. America must do better. We must reverse every single failed policy and restore the Trump-era policies that brought illegal crossings to record lows. That is the only way we can end this border catastrophe. I’m fighting every day in the U.S. Senate to make that happen. Nebraskans deserve nothing less.