VIDEO: Congressman Greg Casar Debunks Far-Right Conspiracy Theory that Migration is Linked to Fentanyl

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) pushed back on right-wing anti-immigrant policies during the Oversight & Accountability Committee hearing on immigration. 

“If we want to stop fentanyl overdoses, we should push for addiction treatment programs and treat this crisis as a public health issue – not baselessly blame immigrants for political theater,” said Greg Casar (D-Texas). “If we were serious about fixing the problems at the border, we would create legal, orderly pathways for people who are fleeing violence and poverty to make a better life here.”

According to the right-wing think tank CATO Institute, the people arrested by Border Patrol are not smuggling fentanyl. Just 279 of 1.8 million arrests by Border Patrol of illegal border crossers resulted in a fentanyl seizure – too small of a percentage (0.02%) to appear on a graph. 

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Congressman Greg Casar represents Texas’s 35th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which runs down I-35 from East Austin to Hays County to the West Side of San Antonio.  A labor organizer and son of Mexican immigrants, Casar serves as the Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Agriculture.