The border crisis is not just at the border

By Rep. Mike Garcia

Published May 24, 2021 4:00am ET

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The border crisis is not just at the border — This Wednesday, June 19, 2019, file photo released by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff shows an illegal cannabis cultivation site in the City of Santa Maria, in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. The number of felony marijuana arrests in California continued to plunge in 2019 in the age of legalization, but another trend remained unchanged: those arrests fell disproportionately on Hispanics and Blacks, state data showed. | (Santa Barbara County Sheriff via AP, File)

The border crisis is not just at the border.

In Southern California’s high desert, there are thousands of large-scale illegal marijuana grows run by transnational criminal organizations and worked by indentured servants and illegal immigrants. These grows are bad for the environment, wasting natural resources, not regulated or taxed, funneling money to foreign nations, and a threat to citizens’ livelihoods.

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Border Border Crisis California Drugs illegal immigration Marijuana Police and Law Enforcement