Glenn Youngkin: We have a catastrophic situation at the border and must extend Title 42
Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin weighs in on the emergency motion to extend Title 42 on 'Your World.'
Despite the fact that at its nearest point, the Commonwealth of Virginia is more than 1,300 miles from the Mexican border, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin warned Monday of dire effects from the record surge of illegal immigrants expected if the Trump-era protection is removed this week.
Late Monday afternoon, Chief Justice John Roberts responded to a request from several Republican attorneys general to pause the removal of the Title 42 health-related immigration restriction by enacting a temporary pause to a Bill Clinton-appointed federal judge's order last month that the provision be nixed.
On "Your World," Youngkin called the situation at the southern border "catastrophic." The governor said the Biden administration or Congress should have acted to prevent an anticipated deluge later this week if Title 42 goes away at the behest of District of Columbia federal Judge Emmet Sullivan.
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Glenn Youngkin (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"[W]e have got to extend Title 42. But this is not a holistic solution. This catastrophic issue at the border has got to result in a decision to secure the border," he said.
Youngkin compared the predicted number of migrants crossing the border to equate to the entire population of his state.
The border itself lies just over 1,300 miles from Virginia's southwestern extreme at the Cumberland Gap, but the immigration crisis' effects are felt throughout the Commonwealth nonetheless, he said.
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US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (Stefani Reynolds / AFP)
Youngkin identified the fentanyl crisis as a top repercussion of the open border being felt in the Old Dominion -- wherein even trace amounts of the narcotic can lead to death.
"We had a record number of overdoses in Virginia and 76% of them came from fentanyl. And we know where the fentanyl comes from: It's time to act. We've got to get Washington to stop sitting on their hands and secure our border," he said.
"We have just an extraordinary number of young people who are dying from fentanyl. We are paying for Narcan to be available across the Commonwealth. We're training people. We're rolling out a statewide communication program. We partnered with our attorney general, Jason Miyares, in a program called One Pill Can Kill. And we have got to make sure everybody's aware of this pandemic that we're having with fentanyl."
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The feds similarly have not acted sufficiently enough on the drug crisis itself, he said, saying that with the combined the drug epidemic and open border crisis, "every state is a border state."
"And that's why you'll see governors – Republican governors – standing up together in order to try to pressure Washington to please secure our border," Youngkin said
"I just can't understand how this is a partisan issue at all. There is a crisis at the border. It's inhumane what's happening... There should be no question in anyone's mind that what's happening at the border is wrong, and we've got to stop it," he added.