CONCORD — Kevin Smith, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, called for all 50 governors to mobilize National Guard or available law enforcement troops to help crack down on illegal immigrants coming into the U.S. over the southern border.

In a letter to President Biden and the nation’s chief executives, Smith said the White House should designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations to give authorities more tools to seize their assets and stem drug trafficking into the U.S.

“Our border crisis is the worst it’s ever been, and deadly foreign fentanyl is pouring over the southern border and into our communities causing record overdoses,” said Smith, a former Londonderry town manager and state juvenile justice official.

“It is past time to view this fentanyl as a foreign weapon of mass destruction, and formally designate the cartels that traffic it as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”

Smith also called upon Biden to remove Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from his cabinet position.

Smith said Mayorkas failed to admit the southern border was a “crisis” and claimed his office “effectively managed an unprecedented number of noncitizens” entering the U.S.

“Nothing could be further from the truth and there hasn’t been anything effective at all about the lack of a strategy along the Mexican border,” Smith said.

Both party candidates pressing agenda

Immigration has clearly emerged as a major issue in this U.S. Senate race.

Smith was the first major GOP candidate to visit the border, which he did last February.

He then issued an immigration plan, which called for finishing the border wall, ending a catch-and-release border policy, ending sanctuary cities, and mandating E-Verify tracking nationwide on the hiring of undocumented workers.

Original article: https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/smith-says-50-state-govs-should-deploy-troops-to-southern-border-crisis/article_6a200398-bc2d-5eca-8a04-c12a3125e760.html

Original source can be found here.