This Week with Gosar

Illegal Aliens Cost Taxpayers $180 BILLION Annually

This week, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released a report detailing the cost of illegal immigration to American taxpayers.  According to the report, taxpayers have forked over more than $180 billion since 2022 to provide services and benefits to illegal aliens and their dependents. This represents a 30 percent increase to taxpayers in just five years.  The report concludes that the additional costs are the result of the Biden administration's open borders policies that “have triggered an historic surge of new illegal aliens pouring across our borders.”   The study found that illegals cost American $78 billion for education, $42 billion for healthcare, $13 billion for food stamps and welfare programs and $47 billion for criminal justice costs. 

Biden Unveils $6.9 Trillion Tax-and-Spend Plan

In a shock to America, the Biden regime released its proposed budget this week and it contains massive tax increases and enormous wasteful spending.  Indeed, the budget prioritizes and rewards illegal aliens and foreigners like Ukrainians, Israelis and others, while punishing Americans.  It is a fair conclusion to deduce that this regime hates the very people it is supposed to govern.  Let’s look at Joe Biden’s $6.9 trillion fiscal year 2024 budget disaster.  The budget includes $3 billion to advance gender equality in furtherance of the radical Left’s woke agenda.  Not a dime is allocated to securing the southern border or combatting cartels, however, $1 billion is set aside to assist Haiti and Central America and another $865 million is budgeted to process asylum cases.   Here’s something you won’t hear from the Fake News: despite raising taxes by $5.5 trillion the Biden budget is ignoring the needs of seniors by allowing the Social Security retirement trust fund to go bankrupt, which will result in an automatic cut of 25% to benefits.  Biden’s tax hikes are also estimated to kill 226,000 jobs, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.   Inflation continues at historic highs, gasoline prices are exorbitant, wages are going in the wrong direction.  The response from Biden: raise taxes and spend more of your money. 

Gosar Expresses Concern About DoD Policy Paying for Travel to have Abortion

I recently sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressing concern about the Department of Defense’s (DoD) latest announcement to implement new policies requiring commanders to allow Service members and their dependents to travel to different states for the purpose of obtaining an abortion if abortion is illegal in the state in which they are stationed. It is unconscionable that it is now the official policy of the DoD to spend taxpayer dollars on supporting abortions.  

In related news, this week I also cosponsored H.R. 1470, No Federal Funds for Abortion Travel Expenses Act.  This legislation prohibits federal funding for abortions through financial or logistical support to individuals traveling to another state or country for an abortion.

Click here to read a copy of the letter.

Gosar Questions OPM Director Regarding Taxpayer Funded Gender Mutilation

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing this week about the waste and mismanagement at Office of Personnel Management (OPM). OPM is responsible for human resources and personnel management for a taxpayer-funded workforce of over two million federal workers and administers over a trillion dollars in healthcare, insurance, and retirement benefits.  During the hearing, I questioned OPM Director Kiran Ahuja on whether she could inform Congress and the American people on the number taxpayer funded sex-change operations were paid for by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, which her agency administers.  In her response, she claimed to have no way of knowing.  You can watch the video of my questioning Director Ahuja here and form your own opinion of whether she was being truthful.

Reminder: You’re Invited to My Roundtable on Water, Desalination and the Future of Arizona

Because space is limited, you must first RSVP to Penny Pew at penny.pew@mail.house.gov.  The address will be provided upon your RSVP.   I look forward to seeing you at the roundtable.

Reminder: You’re Invited to My Grand Opening in Goodyear

You are cordially invited to the grand opening of my new district office in Goodyear, Arizona on March 15, 2023.   Please stop by and join us for light refreshments and conversation.  Please RSVP to Penny Pew at penny.pew@mail.house.gov. 

It’s Mail Time!

I receive a lot of mail each month, but this week I received a touching and heartbreaking email from Josephine Dunn from Prescott, Arizona in response to me reintroducing H.R. 1212, the Death Penalty for Dealing Fentanyl Act, legislation that would punish a defendant with the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of selling or distributing fentanyl that resulted in death.”  Hoping it might raise awareness and save just one life, Josephine granted permission to reprint her email in its entirety:

Before I begin, I wish to thank you for the gift of your time. I want to thank you for allowing me to share my beautiful daughter’s story. As painful as this is for me to do, I wish to spare as many parents as possible the unfathomable pain and debilitating grief I carry every single day. My daughter left this earth 627 days ago.

Attached to this email is a photo of Ashley Marie Dunn.  This was my beautiful daughter. The second image at the bottom is also of my daughter on the very last day of her life.

That second image haunts me every time I close my eyes. I see all of the tubes. I hear those machines working to keep her alive. It is extremely difficult for me to share that photo but I must.

Over the last 20 months, Ashley did not celebrate her beautiful son’s 5th or 6th birthday. She did not watch him graduate from kindergarten. She did not celebrate the 4th of July, two Thanksgivings, two Christmas' or two New Year's days. She did not celebrate her 27th birthday or her 28th birthday this January because she will forever be 26 years old.

The only reason for her absence is she died of Fentanyl poisoning on May 26, 2021. She spent over 30 minutes on the floor of her bathroom between the commode and the bathtub. She lay waiting for her “friends” to clean up her home before calling 911 requesting paramedics. The Good Samaritan Law did not save her. Her "friends" knew she had overdosed and did not call for EMS for 30 minutes.

Her murderer, a convicted felon and repeat drug distribution offender, a 44-year-old career drug dealer/trafficker calculated the value of Ashley’s life to equate to a mere $40.  This dealer has 14 prior convictions for drug sales in Arizona.  “Dawn the Dealer” even went so far as warning Ashley of the possibility of her death. These facts are clearly documented in Ashley’s phone. That phone was surrendered to the honorable officers of PANT because a search warrant was issued. 

As Ashley laid in the ICU at YRMC in Prescott her father and I prayed at her bedside for her to just breathe. You see, Ashley never took another breath on her own. At her bedside, her father and I were faced with the unbearable decision to discontinue all mechanical life saving measures after 86 grueling hours of begging and pleading she just survive this poisoning. That she just breathed. Instead, one half of ONE PILL that contained 5 mg of Fentanyl killed her.

The dealer cannot be prosecuted for Ashley’s death. Nor can she even be charged. She cannot be charged with manslaughter. Her son, her father and I are not even considered victims of “Dawn the Dealer’s” actions because of her official current charges. I say current charges because she has yet to stand trial or be prosecuted for her drug distribution that led to Ashley's death. 

We do not even have the ability to provide a victim impact statement in Ashley’s trafficker’s case. The evidence is clear in Ashley’s phone. Toxicology report states 5mg of Fentanyl. Nothing can be done. We have another court hearing tomorrow morning at 8:30 am in Yavapai County Superior Court. After her arrest for selling drugs to Ashley on May 27, 2021, "Dawn the Dealer" was released out on bond, then absconded from justice for 13 months. She continued to sell drugs until caught again for drug charges in June of 2022. 

Before you decide how you feel about this legislation and our fight to raise awareness about Fentanyl and drugs in general, I wish to remind you no family is immune from being touched by Fentanyl. Fentanyl is poison. My fight to pursue and see drug dealers prosecuted, poison peddlers in prison and the murders for quick money will only end when I take my last breath.

I do not wish to bore you with statistics except for the following:

In the United States, every seven minutes of every day of the week, someone dies from OVERDOSE/POISONING. Yes, you read that correctly. That is something I never wanted to know. Please take a moment and thank God right now, if your family has not been touched or changed by addiction, or death because of addiction, or death from fentanyl/opioid poisoning. All street drugs are potentially laced with fentanyl these days.

By the time you’re done reading and processing this email, someone will have died from an opioid overdose/poisoning. Maybe someone you know. Someone’s child. Someone’s mother. Someone’s spouse. Someone’s parents. Someone’s friend. Someone’s aunt/uncle. Let that sink in. Ashley Dunn was my “someone.” She will not die in vain.

FENTANYL IS NOT A MORAL problem. I repeat, FENTANYL IS NOT A MORAL PROBLEM. Drug traffickers must be held accountable for killing our children. Killing our family members. Killing our friends and coworkers. Two weeks ago, a three-year old child in Apache Junction was poisoned by fentanyl.

In 2022, Fentanyl was responsible for over 2000 deaths in Arizona alone. That equates to five Arizona residents daily.

Please hear my story and advocate for the “someone” to not die in vain. Take a stand and save another family from the unbearable grief we have been through these last 627 days without her. My grandson is left without his mother. We as grandparents are left to pick up the pieces of his little heart.

Ashley had brown hair and beautiful almond shaped eyes. Ashley, with one smile would steal your heart. Ashley had a kind heart and gentle soul. Ashley had a personality that would light up every room. Ashley spent $40 dollars for 4 oxycodone pills. “Dawn the Dealer” traveled from Glendale, Arizona  which is 97 miles away from Prescott, to knowingly deliver poisonous Fentanyl. All of her prior drug convictions did not stop her from delivering that poison to Ashley. Ashley's death did not stop her from continuing to sell Fentanyl while out on bond and absconding from her charges.  Ashley did decide to get high that night but not decide to die. She paid the ultimate price by losing her life because of one half of ONE pill.

Ashley was a daughter and a granddaughter. She was a sister and an aunt. She was a wife and a mother. She was a cousin. She was a friend and animal lover. She was an artist. She was a painter. She was at the lowest point of her life. “Dawn the Dealer” preyed on her suffering and financially gained $40 while my girl lost her life.

So the paradigm needs to change. Public awareness needs to change. Traffickers need to understand if they peddle poison in Arizona and their buyer dies, they are truly murderers and should be held accountable. Twenty-three other states and the District of Columbia have similar legislation. Those states have already prosecuted traffickers in cases of death, seeing a dramatic decrease in deaths in just a short time.

What are we waiting for in Arizona? We are a border state. A hub for Fentanyl to enter this country ready for distribution. Traffickers are purchasing pill press machines online. Just today in Alameda County, California, a Fentanyl manufacturing center was stopped. Sheriff's officials said there was clear evidence of manufacturing such a kilogram presses, molds, cutting agents and other drug paraphernalia throughout the home.  Twenty-three pounds of powdered fentanyl was seized as well as over 25,000 tablets.

In Scottsdale, Arizona, the DEA made a record seizure of 1.7 MILLION fentanyl tablets in December of 2021. How many people must die in Arizona before we do something to stop drug traffickers? Again, on average, five people die from Fentanyl daily in Arizona.

My hope is this email humbles you and your judgement of who might take one pill. The people dying from Fentanyl are toddlers, high school students, first time users, recreational users and longtime addicts. These people come from all walks of life.

Please know there is a stigma and great shame that follows the family of someone who dies of a drug related death. I will not be ashamed of Ashley and her manner of death. Traffickers and dealers should be ashamed of their actions. Ashley was so much more than what took her from us. We as a family will not be silent. We need legislation now to save the lives of others.

Fentanyl doesn’t discriminate. I will forever advocate for each and every person that dies from Fentanyl overdose/poisoning because those people deserved every bit of space on this earth as we do. Every bit of love and peace and opportunity. Survival from overdose is possible but not for my Ashley. My Ashley has died. Meanwhile “Dawn the dealer” was free to continue knowingly killing people with poisonous Fentanyl from Glendale to Prescott and beyond for over a year. That is a disgrace. Her freedom was shameful. She is a murderer. In my opinion, continuing to knowingly sell Fentanyl after knowing she caused Ashley's death makes her a serial killer.

This legislation will not bring Ashley back. Nor will it bring all the other “someone’s” back to their families. However, this bill will stop drug traffickers from selling poison in Arizona. Certain and severe punishments will make drug traffickers think twice. If convicted, they will graduate from being a dealer to a murderer.  They each will have their day in court and are innocent until proven guilty.  They will have clear consequences for their greed. Manslaughter laws are not working for prosecution. Only four cases in Tucson have had manslaughter charges, all of which were plead down, so not prosecuted for manslaughter. Those dealers, like "Dawn the Dealer" will return to the streets of Tucson to kill more people with Fentanyl because the consequences for selling Fentanyl are too lenient. 

Still in tears,

Josephine Dunn

This story, and others like Ashley’s, is a nightmare and was completely avoidable if our southern border was secure.  If you want to share your story on how Fentanyl or other drugs have impacted someone you know, please write my District Director, Penny Pew at penny.pew@mail.house.gov.

Tweet of the Week:

Photo of the Week:

Daniel Hagen from Payson shares this photo of an eagle he snapped on a lake while paddle boarding.  Pretty awesome!  Thanks for sharing, Daniel.

Now, who is next!? Do you have photography skills?  Do you want the chance for your photograph to be featured as our "Picture of the Week?"   If so, send your best shots of our great state to Anthony.foti@mail.house.gov.  Remember to include your name and where you live.  We have a beautiful state, let's show her off!

Gosar in the News and Other Must-Read Stories:

American Greatness: A Handy January 6 Fact Sheet

Mohave Valley Daily News: Gosar reintroducing bill aimed at fentanyl traffickers

Epoch Times: House Oversight Panel Wants to Know Why Federal Workers Aren’t at Their Offices

Epoch Times: Border Officials Say Technology Is Good, But People Make the Difference

Townhall: The Chair of the January 6 Select Committee Just Made a Damning Admission

New York Post: An egregious denial of due process for Jan. 6 protesters

RSB Network: TUCKER CARLSON BRINGS THE TRUTH ABOUT JAN. 6 TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

NBC News: Family sues Airbnb after 19-month-old dies of fentanyl toxicity during stay in Florida rental

Western Journal: COVID-19 Cover-Up 'Largest, Deadliest Scandal in American History'

Hannity:  Fauci Commissioned, Edited, and Approved Paper to Disprove Lab Leak Theory

New York Post: Critical race theory is teaching kids to hate each other