When House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., introduced the Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act he set the stage for a vital national debate on important questions.

Does our safety matter? Does the safety of our children matter? Does the safety of our neighborhoods and communities matter?

Every American should be grateful that McCarthy is boldly setting out a plan to genuinely control our southern border and provided the resources and organization needed. He has written a bill that he says the House will vote on in December.

When contrasted with the open borders bill of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. – which every Democratic Senate incumbent has co-sponsored – the choice between the two parties is clear.

Republicans will control the border. Democrats will throw the border wide open to anyone who wants to enter.

The American people can decide which future is safer and more desirable.

What will someday amaze historians is how so many of our politicians and members of our news media have simply ignored the facts and focused on politically inspired distortions.

It is a fact that El Salvadoran gangs like MS-13 and their imitators have become a major threat in many American cities and neighborhoods. These gangs like to use knives on their victims because they can inflict more pain and create more terror – and they prefer torturing people rather than simply killing them.

A number of MS-13 members have been convicted of coercing children into sexual trafficking for the gang’s profits.

I know how great a danger MS-13 is because I helped create a television special on this violent group for Fox News more than a decade ago. It was already horrifying then. It is worse now.

But of course, the left-wing media does all it can to ignore or minimize MS-13’s viciousness, while focusing instead on the sad story of the American government’s mishandling of young people whose parents have broken the law to get into the United States.

However, the problem goes far beyond gangs.

Fentanyl is a stunningly dangerous drug. Carfentanil is an even more dangerous drug. Both kill, both are made in China, and both are largely brought into the United States across our southern border.

In 2017, there were an estimated 72,000-plus drug overdose deaths in the United States. This is a stunning death rate when you consider that in the entire Vietnam War we lost 58,220 members of the U.S. military .

The fastest growing cause of drug overdose deaths in 2017 was fentanyl, which took the lives of more than 30,000 Americans.

Controlling the American border is the first line of defense for our children, our neighborhoods and our safety.

Democrats who favor open borders, sanctuary cities for criminals, and abolishing or dramatically weakening the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) should be made to explain why they aren’t worried by the gangs and the drugs.

Majority Leader McCarthy has done the country a real service by offering the Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act – an effective bill that would increase safety for all Americans.

Let your representative in the House and your senators know that if they care about the safety of Americans, they should co-sponsor and fully support the Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act.

Democrats who favor open borders, sanctuary cities for criminals, and abolishing or dramatically weakening the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) should be made to explain why they aren’t worried by the gangs and the drugs.

Every day that we fail to act in controlling and securing the border, Americans die from drug overdoses and others are threatened and intimidated by gangs.

It is time to put American safety first.

House Majority Leader McCarthy is doing that with the Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act – and he deserves our help.