Three South Dakota state lawmakers tour southern U.S. border

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – A trio of South Dakota Lawmakers are back home after a brief visit to the U.S. and Mexico border.

Senate Majority Leader Casey Crabtree, House Majority Leader Will Mortenson and Rep. Tony Venhuizen toured portions of the southern border last week. “Americans for Prosperity” funded the trip.

Crabtree said his biggest takeaway was seeing how the issues with border security and illegal immigration are affecting families.

“Families on both sides of the border are having issues that are really really scary,” Crabtree claimed. “We heard from folks that are ag producers that have had to move to town because of security issues out in different areas in the country. We saw issues where we had heard from border patrol folks that had 109 pounds of fentanyl seized. That’s enough to kill our whole state times and times over again.”

We also talked with Crabtree about what this visit could mean for next year’s legislative session.

You can watch more from our conversation Sunday on Matters of the State, at 10 a.m. on KOTA Territory TV.

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