Republican presidential candidate proposes border wall with Canada

 

'Build both walls,' Vivek Ramaswamy says, citing fentanyl trafficking

Republican presidential candidate businessman Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during the third Republican presidential primary debate in Miami on Wednesday night.

A wall with Canada? The idea came up during a Republican presidential debate, from a candidate insisting his party's border policies aren't tough enough.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy brought it up unprompted on Wednesday night in Miami.

Bombing drug labs in Mexico has become an increasingly popular idea in his party, along with building a wall along the southern U.S. border.

But Ramaswamy said these policies don't go far enough. He lamented that the northern border does not get discussed as often as it should.

"I'm the only candidate on this stage, as far as I'm aware, who has actually visited the northern border," Ramaswamy said, on the tail end of remarks about border security.

"There was enough fentanyl that was captured just on the northern border last year to kill three million Americans. So we've got to just skate to where the puck is going — not just where the puck is," he said. 

"Don't just build the wall — build both walls."

Ramaswamy also said the U.S. should also use its military to seal any tunnels constructed by trafficking gangs.

For context, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that two pounds of fentanyl have been seized in the northern border region this year.

That represents approximately 0.0074 per cent of the 27,000 pounds seized overall, according to the agency's figures.

Republican lawmakers have been complaining more frequently about the northern border in the context of unauthorized migration, but the numbers remain a tiny portion of the U.S. total.

A mere 2.7 per cent of people stopped trying to enter the U.S. from Canada since the start of the 2022 fiscal year were actually trying to enter between crossings, according to U.S. data available earlier this year.