Nearly 9 in 10 in new poll hold feds responsible for border crisis, most expect states to fix

Almost 87% of Americans blame the federal government for the border crisis, according to a new poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group for Convention of States Action.

"With local and state government law enforcement resources overwhelmed by the large increase in illegal immigrants and asylum seekers needing assistance and increased drug cartel activity," respondents were prompted, "do you believe it is the responsibility of states or the Federal government to handle these increased costs at the southern border?"

Among Republicans, 91% said it was the federal government's responsibility. Surprisingly, only slightly fewer Democrats, 83%, gave the same response.

"I've never seen a poll like this — 87% of the American public blames the federal government for the problem at the border," President of Convention of States Action Mark Meckler said on the John Solomon Reports podcast. "What was most interesting is you dig into ... the crosstabs — all the Democrats, breakdowns by age, by party, by race — what you saw was no difference literally within a few points across the board.

"So it's almost 90% of people blame the federal government. And they expect that the states are going to have to fix it. They don't believe that the federal government's going to fix the problem."

An overwhelming 94% of Republicans surveyed were either "not confident at all" or "not very confident" the federal government "has a plan to address the widespread drug and human trafficking occurring at the U.S./Mexico border" — but even 36% of Democrats expressed a similar lack of confidence.

Illegal immigration across the southern border has skyrocketed under the Biden administration, overwhelming the resources of the U.S. Border Patrol and border states and communities alike.

Customs and Border Patrol agents reported encountering more than 2.7 million migrants nationwide, mostly along the southern border, in fiscal year 2022. Migrant encounters at the U.S. border with Mexico surged 23% in March of this year.

"What this administration has done is weaponized every part of the government," South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said on the John Solomon Reports podcast. "Just like to deal with Trump, they sued over stopping the wall. They've done everything they can to open and make this country as insecure as they can. It's an invasion, and it's against the Constitution."

On Saturday a rally led by the "HOW MANY MORE" coalition assembled in front of the Texas capitol to demand elected officials take action for what is happening at the border. Key speakers included Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy and Mark Meckler. 

The rally centered around issues including fentanyl trafficking, human trafficking and national security concerns. 

"We call it 'How Many More?' because we have to ask ourselves that question," said Meckler. "How many more kids are we gonna allow to be sold into slavery? How many young girls and women and boys sold into sexual slavery? How many more fentanyl deaths are we going to allow in the country right now?"

The rally was intended to urge the Texas Legislature to step up state border enforcement efforts to make up for federal negligence of its statutory border security responsibilities. 

"We're demanding that the Texas state government take action and pass HB 20, which creates a Border Protection Unit, which is essentially a Texas border patrol that can seize cartel assets," Meckler explained. "They name them international terrorist organizations. Frankly, they need to do everything that the governor and the Legislature can do to repel the invasion here in Texas."

A House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing earlier this week titled "The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children," which included testimony from Tara Lee Rodas, a whistleblower from the Department of Health and Human Services. 

"Whether intentional or not, it can be argued that the U.S. Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children," read Rodas's written testimony, according to Fox News.

"Today, children will work overnight shifts at slaughterhouses, factories, restaurants to pay their debts to smugglers and traffickers. Today, children will be sold for sex," she testified. "Today, children will call a hotline to report they are being abused, neglected, and trafficked. For nearly a decade, unaccompanied children have been suffering in the shadows." 

Norman called the child trafficking crisis at the border "evil."

"It's evil what's going on in this country," he said. "That's the only word to describe this. For unaccompanied minors, which in 2020 I think there were 33,000. Now it's five times that. Two hundred and some thousand unaccompanied young children — you see photos of children being just dropped off and left. They're being raped. They're being sodomized, and for this administration to turn a blind eye, and Kamala Harris can giggle all she wants, but this is human trafficking."