Michigan testimony on border concerns did contribute to this bill.

The Detroit News in February highlighted Rebecca Kiessling. New Detroit Congressman Shri Thanadar gets a line at the end.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2023/02/28/southern-border-crisis-michigan-mother-rebecca-kiessling-testifies-sons-fentanyl-overdose-deaths/69953671007/

'You're not protecting our children': Rochester Hills mom testifies about 2 sons' fentanyl deaths

Feb. 28, 2023

Washington― A Michigan mother tearfully told House lawmakers the story Tuesday of her two sons' deaths from an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl, saying the government isn't doing enough to combat the opioid crisis and halt illegal drugs at the border.

"My children were taken away from me," saidRebecca Kiessling, a family law attorney and conservative activist from Rochester Hills.

"This should not be politicized. It's not about race. Fentanyl doesn't care about race. You talk about welcoming those crossing our border seeking protection? You're welcoming drug dealers across our border. You're giving them protection. You're not protecting our children."

Kiessling said her two sons, Caleb, 20, and Kyler, 18, died July 29, 2020, from fentanyl poisoning, along with 17-year-old Sophia Harris, when they took what they thought were Percocet pills that turned out to contain the drug fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid drug that can be lethal in tiny amounts.

She said her sons' "dealer" was saved by a dose of the overdose-reversing spray Narcan and is serving prison time. Lorenzo Brabo was sentenced in 2021 to eight to 15 years in prison for providing the fentanyl that led to the three overdose deaths, according to reports.

"I don't use the term 'drug overdose' because this was not an overdose. This was murder," she said. "This is a war. Act like it. Do something."

Kiessling testified Tuesday morning before the Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, urging Congress and the White House to take the flow of illegal drugs over the Southern border more seriously. Prior to her sons' deaths, Kiessling said she didn't know what fentanyl was.

"I had heard of the opioid epidemic. I thought, you know, people are getting prescription drugs and getting addicted and then getting it on the streets, and that it affects their ability to work. I didn't know that people were dying," she said.

"I didn't know that my boys were taking anything that could kill them. They didn't think that they were either. They thought that they were safe with pills. ... But the government knew. The government's known for years and years."

Opioid overdose trends

Michigan experienced a 23% increase in opioid-related deaths from 1,768 in 2019 to 2,171 in 2020, when Kiessling's two sons died, according to state Department of Health and Human Services' statistics. The number rose to 2,539 deaths in 2021, a 17% jump. U.S. opioid-related deaths rose from 68,630 in 2020 to 80,411 in 2021, according to theNational Institute on Drug Abuse.

Kiessling highlighted the tally of drug-related deaths the year that Caleb was born — 20,000 in 2000 — and the surge of 100,000 like deaths in 2020.

"If we had Chinese troops lining up along our Southern border with weapons aimed at our people, with weapons of mass destruction aimed at our cities, you damn well know you would do something about it," she said.

"We have a weather balloon from China going across the country. Nobody died, and everybody's freaking out about it. But 100,000 die every year, and nothing's being done. Not enough is being done."

Kiessling started crying as she read from a paper written by Kyler weeks before his death, advising to "stay away from drugs and alcohol."

"It's not worth it," he wrote.

Kyler, who had graduated from high school the day before his death, also wrote in a list that he wanted to start working more to stay focused, have a better relationship with his parents, to report to all drug tests and "find another method to cope that works for me," according to his mother.

Caleb, Kiessling said, had started speaking in schools to encourage kids not to try drugs. He wrote a testimony to share with them, saying that he'd "dabbled" in drugs but had stayed away from crack and heroine because he'd grown up "watching my birth mother ruin her life and watch all her friends pass away from heroin overdoses."

Kiessling said later in the hearing that the boys' birth mother died six months after they did.

Lawmakers respond

Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tennessee, blamed the Biden administration for border policies that he said have contributed to the "surge" in migrants at the border, "and the drug cartels have taken advantage of the situation."

Kiessling's sons died in 2020, when Donald Trump was president and was trying to extend a wall across the Southern border.

The Biden administration has touted itsoverdose epidemic strategy, which has included spending $1.5 billion on grants for aid to treatment programs and law enforcement. The U.S. Department of the Treasury is using sanctions to target the global fentanyl supply chain, especially in Mexico, administration officials have said.

The Biden administration in February also proposed a rule that migrants seeking to enter the United States will be assumed inadmissible if they "circumvent available, established pathways to lawful migration," including entering the country between ports of entry or arriving at a port of entry without a scheduled appointment.The proposal also rejects those who fail to seek protection in countries through which they pass while heading to the United States.

Green asked Kiessling how her community has been affected by the opioid crisis. She replied that some parents and siblings whom she knows from support groups had committed suicide.

"It's devastating families," she said. "It's been very difficult for my (three) daughters. One daughter, she went off to Michigan State and came home after a semester. It was just too painful."

One of Kyler's friends approached her at a restaurant last summer and said he'd stopped doing any kind of drugs in response to his death, Kiessling said.

"He said, 'I want you to know that your son's death started a movement in our hometown, so that when people show up with pills, they're ostracized, and they're condemned,' he said," Kiessling recounted. "But, you know, for how long? How many of the kids in the high schools now know about my son's deaths?"

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, also lamented the surge in fentanyl deaths, saying it's become a top cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45 years old.

"This is unforgivable," said Greene, thanking Kiessling for sharing her story and saying her sons' deaths "should never have happened."

Kiessling responded in part by criticizing witness testimony from the Cato Institute's David Bier, who suggested that policymakers should focus on demand and not supply to reduce drug deaths.

"What I'm hearing him saying is, 'They asked for it.' Seriously, are you kidding me?" Kiessling said. "We need to protect our children. They didn't ask for that. This wasn't demand that they wanted the fentanyl. They thought they were getting Percocet, OK?"

Rep. Donald Payne Jr., D-New Jersey, said most illegal drugs are smuggled through ports of entry into the United States "unfortunately" by U.S. citizens, and usually hidden in vehicles, cargo, or on a person in the hopes "it won't be detected."

Payne suggested lawmakers should focus on what policy changes can be made to allow personnel at ports of entry to focus on the interdiction of drugs.

It was the first full committee hearing for freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, a former businessman and Indian immigrant who spoke of the importance of the Northern border.

"Unfortunately, a shortage of pathways for immigration has made our borders very difficult to manage. CBP has had to rely on temporary duty assignments to surge employees where they are most needed, which has often pulled resources away from the northern border," Thanedar said. "As an immigrant myself, I'm a proud example of how immigrants contribute to American society."