Dear Friend,

We hope you had a restful Father’s Day! Jacquie and I were grateful to have some time with the family this weekend, but today I’m back in Washington for another week of votes.

Our office continues to focus on the ongoing scarcity of essential goods caused by the Biden Administration’s supply chain failures (we recently took action on life-threatening medical dye and baby formula shortages.) We are also keeping an eye on the Supreme Court as they finalize their long-awaited decision on Dobbs v. Jackson.

Read on to hear what we’re working on this week…

Fighting for Accessible Mental Health Services

For many of the nearly one in five Americans living with mental illness, getting treatment isn’t as simple as asking just asking for help. In fact, nearly half of those in need go without mental health services.

In order to close this treatment gap, we are introducing the Securing Facilities for Mental Health Services Act. This legislation will make mental health care accessible to more patients by allowing inpatient psychiatric facilities to apply for mortgage assistance. Currently, these types of treatment centers are the only type of hospitals excluded from receiving this type of support. This bipartisan bill will ease the creation and expansion of mental health care facilities, bringing critical care to communities and patients in need.

Congressman Emmer meets with members of the Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs

We have made it a priority to work closely with mental health professionals and advocates to ensure our efforts match the needs of patients and providers. Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with members of the Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs. The organization’s members provide mental health services to more than 200,000 Minnesotans each year.

We are grateful to Minnesota’s mental health professionals for providing these important services, and we will continue our work to ensure care is available to anyone in need.

A new record in the border crisis

Last month marked another worrying milestone in the crisis at our southern border: in May, there were 239,416 illegal border crossings, making it the third straight month with the highest illegal crossings in over two decades. This is over a 900% increase from 2020. 

It isn’t just people crossing the border. Since President Biden took office, CBP has seized 1,060,100 pounds of illegal drugs, including 7,700 pounds of fentanyl so far in Fiscal Year 2022 alone. Fentanyl is highly addictive and extremely deadly—in 2021, drug overdoses hit an all-time high of over 100,000.

Once these drugs make it into the United States, they spread to communities across the country. Thanks to the Biden Administration’s lack of commitment to border security, every state is now a border state. We must secure our borders and support our Customs and Border Protection agents if we are to stop the spread of these deadly drugs into our communities.

ALERT: Watch out for this scam

Last week, our office learned of a concerning tactic that scammers are using to gain trust, information, and money. According to the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, scammers are now emailing and texting pictures of real and doctored law enforcement credentials and badges to “prove” they are legitimate.

If you or someone you know think you may have encountered this scam:

1. Do not panic! If you receive a communication that causes a strong emotional response, take a deep breath. Hang up or ignore the message. Talk to someone you trust.

2. Do not click on links or attachments. Block unwanted calls and text messages.

3. Do not transfer your money! Do not buy that gift card! Never pay someone who insists that you pay with a gift card, prepaid debit card, Internet currency or cryptocurrency, wire transfer, money transfer, or by mailing cash.

4. Be skeptical. If you think a real law enforcement officer is trying to reach you, call your local law enforcement using a non-emergency number to verify. Do not believe scammers who “transfer” your call to an official or who feed you a number as proof. Scammers can create fake numbers and identities. Do not trust your caller ID.

5. Be cautious of any contact claiming to be from a government agency or law enforcement, telling you about a problem you don’t recognize. Do not provide your personal information, even if the caller has some of your information.

Visit ftc.gov/scam to read about common scams and how you can avoid them.

Until next week, if you are in need of assistance or would like to share your thoughts with me, please write me an e-mail here.

To keep up with what we’re doing in Washington, follow me on Twitter and Facebook for more updates!

Sincerely,