Wisconsin DA and sheriff testify before Congress on border crisis

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Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney and Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt testified before The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

The hearing addressed the impact of the border crisis in communities across Wisconsin.

Sen. Ron Johnson also testified Thursday. Johnson previously served as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee for about six years.

“Trump had the border under control, then President Biden used the exact same executive authority that President Trump used to close the border, to open it up,” Johnson said during the hearing.

According to Johnson, Biden was forced by the media to admit there was a problem at the border.

During the hearing, Schmidt called for more resources and asked, “Where is Senator Baldwin?”

According to Baldwin’s website, her office supports legislation funding new security and screening technology at the southwest border, hiring more Border Patrol agents, and increasing resources for Customs and Border Protection officers.

“If Trump doesn’t win this election, we are screwed,” said Schmidt during the hearing, quoting another Wisconsin sheriff.

Unprecedented times

“In my 24 years of working in law enforcement, I have never seen this type of criminal element from outside of our borders in our home state of Wisconsin,” Schmidt said.

Fond Du Lac County

Toney began his testimony by providing background on Fond du Lac County.

“We’re a county of about 100,000 people. We have numerous highways running through the community that makes us a corridor for drug trafficking,” Toney said, noting, “We’ve seen seizure of drugs with quantities soaring like we have never seen before.”

According to Toney, authorities are no longer seeing methamphetamine labs. Instead the drug is coming across the open southern border, noting Fentanyl is the most destructive.

“Sadly, as a district attorney, I’ve sat across from too many parents that have buried their child, and those conversations are never easy when we’re actually able to file a criminal case,” Toney said, noting the victims’ families “have to come back to court day after day, month after month, sometimes year after year to relive that trauma.”

According to Toney, many of these deaths would have been avoidable had the Biden-Harris Administration secured the southern border like President Trump had during his administration.

Toney then provided statistics on the rise in overdose deaths.

“And these are all families that don’t get to say, ‘I love you’ to somebody that they hold dear, whether it be at Thanksgiving, birthdays, holidays or family events. This is all a direct consequence of the southern border crisis with drugs pouring into our country, and the Fentanyl crisis cannot be underscored enough,” Toney said, noting four people were recently charged in one drug overdose death in the city of Ripon where Vice President Harris recently visited. “And a couple of them are juveniles that were charged in a homicide in relation to the delivery of drugs,” Toney added.

As if the pandemic didn’t put enough of a burden on the legal system with backlogs and health care system with massive hospital bed shortages, the border crisis is adding stress to both the courts and health care system, according to Toney.

“When we have some of these very serious crimes that result in a hospital stay, we know that some of our hospitals struggle with bed space and that can create various issues, as well that there are issues that go beyond just the stories that we see in the news and it’s happening day in and day out across Wisconsin and across the country,” Toney said, noting, “but, they’re all avoidable.”

However, the impact from the border crisis is not just impacting hospitals and courts. Jails are at capacity.

“When we have more illegal immigrants that are being prosecuted for crime, sometimes our jails operate at thin margins and counties are having to look at building new jails, not solely because of that, but that’s part of the issue. And we’re looking at that in Fond du Lac County … looking at well over $100 million to build a jail, and those are real costs to taxpayers in our community,” Toney added.

Later in Toney’s testimony he shared a more personal experience.

Toney was driving in the city of Fond du Lac last April when he was rear ended, twice.

According to Toney, the person that hit him fled the scene.

“I am appreciative that his license plate fell off his truck so that we were able to identify him,” Toney noted.

Fortunately for Toney, the driver actually came back to the scene, “because he thought we were gone,” Toney said.

A subsequent law enforcement investigation revealed the driver was in the country illegally, did not have insurance, and totaled Toney’s personal vehicle.

Toney used his personal story as an example of how no one in Wisconsin is immune from the consequences of crime committed by illegal immigrants.

Toney also shared a personal story, noting that “America is a nation of immigrants that offers hope for a better life, a safer future. And we are that shining city on a hill and that’s why people will seek to come here. My family experienced that. My great grandfather came to America from Lebanon. My grandfather fought in a World War. My dad was a police officer, and I have the honor of being a district attorney, and we know, immigrants have built our nation, and we support it, but it has to be done legally to prevent the consequences and the crime that we’re seeing in the Fentanyl that’s pouring across our borders,” Toney said.

During an interview with FOX News prior to the hearing, FOX News noted that Wisconsin may be 1,600 miles from the Mexico border, but that distance appears to be irrelevant when it comes to the impact of the border crisis.

“I’m in my 12th year as the district attorney here and I wouldn’t have thought I’d have to be testifying on the immigration consequences of the open border and Fentanyl that’s pouring into the United States and making its way into our community setting. There have been record overdose deaths over the past few years,” Toney said during an interview with FOX News.

Noting heavy drug cartel activity in rural Wisconsin, Schmidt said also during the FOX News interview, “Wisconsin is a border state. It’s amazing that the (Biden-Harris) administration did absolutely nothing (to stop it).”

According to Schmidt, because of the Biden-Harris Administration’s failure to secure the border, Wisconsin taxpayers are paying the price.

“Now our state prison system has to deal with  … because they didn’t do their job in the first (place),” Schmidt said during the interview.

“Who sits at the top of the U.S. Government impacts communities at a local level, and you’re witnessing that firsthand,” he added.

Toney agreed.

“I’m a district attorney, I’m seeing the consequences,” Toney said during the FOX News interview.

“The reality is Vice President Harris has no credibility on this issue and that if folks want to elect somebody that’s going to control the border, that’s President Trump,” Toney added.