Border patrol agents are overwhelmed with the influx of immigrants, making illegal drug trafficking into the U.S. easier for cartels. | Gerald L. Nino, CBP, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (public domain)
Border patrol agents are overwhelmed with the influx of immigrants, making illegal drug trafficking into the U.S. easier for cartels. | Gerald L. Nino, CBP, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (public domain)
Last year's fentanyl death rate has caused the country's opioid problem to become an urgent crisis.
As President Joe Biden continues to push for an open border policy, border patrol agents do not have the manpower to adequately perform their jobs. Thus, experts have recently reported that Mexican drug cartels are taking advantage of the chaotic influx of migrants at the border to smuggle thousands of pounds of deadly fentanyl into the country.
In a recent press release, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued provisional data from its National Center for Health Statistics that found in 2021 an estimated 107,622 people died of drug overdoses, with deaths from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl surpassing any other substance. Fentanyl deaths in 2021 (71,238) rose by 23% from 2020 (57,834).
In Arizona, the number of confirmed opioid deaths rose 55% from 2019 (1,294 deaths) to 2021 (2,006 deaths), data from the Arizona Department of Health Services said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (D-TX) took to social media to lay blame with the Biden administration.
“The cartels are exploiting Biden’s open border and poisoning our country with fentanyl,” Cruz said on Twitter.
The New York Post recently reported that data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) indicated more than 90% of 10,000 pounds of fentanyl seized during 2021 was taken at legal border entry sites in Arizona and California, where an estimated 30% of migrants are entering the country on any given day.
This draws the ire of Robert Almonte, a Texas-based security consultant who once served as deputy chief of the El Paso Police Department.
“This is a crisis,” Almonte told The Post. “I get mad because I don’t think people get mad enough about what’s happening.”
The CBP noted that the problem is further exacerbated, according to critics, by a Biden administration plan to lift Title 42, a regulation that arose from the pandemic to expel migrants at the southern border. An injunction was granted last month by U.S. District Judge Robert R. Summerhays of Louisiana, preventing the administration from lifting Title 42.
Moreover, in addition to production in pill form, fentanyl also is being introduced into other drugs—including heroin and cocaine—increasing their potency and making them more lethal, The Post said.
Almonte noted that more people are dying from fentanyl overdoses than suicide, traffic accidents and guns combined.
“Border patrol agents are too busy dealing with the influx of migrants, and are not really focused on looking for fentanyl,” Almonte told The Post. “Border agents are not getting the support they need from the federal government to stop the flow of fentanyl, which is killing thousands of Americans.”
The more than 20 million counterfeit pills seized last year would be enough to provide a fatal dose of fentanyl to each American, demonstrating the stakes at the border, a DEA press release said.
As the Department of Homeland Security prepares for up to 18,000 migrants per day at the border with Mexico should Title 42 be lifted, concerns continue to grow over the fentanyl issue, a recent ABC News report said.
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