By Jason Cohen
Democratic New York Rep. Dan Goldman lectured a mother who lost her daughter to fentanyl during a House Homeland Security hearing on Thursday.
Josephine Dunn lost her daughter Ashley to fentanyl at the age of 26 and testified before Congress at a hearing titled “Voices for the Victims: The Heartbreaking Reality of the Mayorkas Border Crisis.” Goldman told her that she was being “used” and was not qualified to be a witness before going back and forth about the border.
“I want to apologize in some ways to you that you are here, really to share your story, but being used as a fact witness for an impeachment investigation,” Goldman told Dunn and another mother who lost her daughter to border-related issues. “And obviously given what your experience has been, you don’t have the background to understand what a high crime and misdemeanor is and how it relates to this. So I hope that you’re handling that okay.”
“You would agree, would you not, that it would help to stop the fentanyl trade and fentanyl trafficking from coming into this country if we had more law enforcement officers at the border and more resources and technology to stop the fentanyl from coming in?” he asked Dunn. “Do you agree with that?”
👀Dem Rep Dan Goldman tells mom who lost her daughter to fentanyl: “You don’t have the background” to speak on Mayorkas’ impeachment. pic.twitter.com/88Ador3Axn
— Jennie Taer 🇮🇱🇺🇸 (@JennieSTaer) January 18, 2024
“I disagree with that, because border patrol is now being used to make sandwiches and to screen people and let them into our country, so I disagree with you,” Dunn responded. “I would like the border patrol to be able to do the job that they were hired to do. Every border patrol officer that I have spoken to has told me that their hands are tied by this administration and mister Mayorkas. I’ve been to the border, sir, have you?”
Goldman did not answer the question.
“Excuse me, I’m asking the questions,” he retorted.
He then said every Department of Homeland Security (DHS) senior official Congress has interviewed has asserted “it would be helpful to provide more resources at the border to stop the flow of fentanyl coming in, and that is actually exactly what President Biden has done.”
Tammy Nobles, whose 20-year-old daughter Kayla Hamilton was killed by an alleged MS-13 member in July 2022, is suing the DHS for $100 million for releasing him into the United States. She also testified at the hearing, asserting that DHS and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials neglected to appropriately check the alleged MS-13 member for gang affiliation and vet his sponsor ahead of his release into the country.
