U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) called on President Joe Biden to do something about the fentanyl overdose crisis that is the leading cause of the death for Americans between 18 and 45.
Drug overdose deaths have increased significantly in the past two years as border patrol agents are dealing with a surplus of incoming illegal drugs at both the southern and northern border.
"On average, one person in the U.S. dies from fentanyl poisoning every seven minutes, and it is the leading cause of death in Americans 18 to 45," she tweeted April 13. "Joe Biden needs to start taking the crisis he created seriously. We must secure our Southern and Northern borders."
According to the Daily Caller, between October 2022 and February 2023, border patrol agents seized 1,500 pounds of drugs at the northern border, more than the total drugs seized in all of fiscal year 2022. Border agents have also seen an 864% increase in illegal immigrants crossing in the Swanton Sector (parts of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire) in January 2023.
“The influx of illegals from the southern border, along with the lack of border enforcement, has created a wave of fentanyl in an area that never had much of either. Overdoses are more and more common, and it’s only picking up,” a northern border patrol agent told the Daily Caller. “We have less agents in the field today than we did a few years ago, and we’re catching more (and that) can be attributed straight to the administration’s lack of border security,” National Border Patrol Council President Sean Walsh told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Fentanyl is being smuggled mainly through the U.S.-Mexico border, with 90% of some 80,000 opioid-related deaths due to fentanyl in 2021, CBS News reported. Mexican drug cartels have ramped up the flow of fentanyl into an industry that brings the drugs to the border and into the U.S.
"The vast, vast majority is sought to be smuggled through the ports of entry and tractor-trailer trucks and passenger vehicles," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a February hearing.
According to CBS News, the DEA in 2022 seized more than 50 million fentanyl-laced pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder, which was enough to kill every American.
The report further stated that Homeland Security tracks down Mexican cartels that are largely responsible for smuggling the drugs, but the cartels have links to China where production takes place.
One official told CBS News, "They have the contacts to China, and then furthermore, the distribution networks to get things across the United States."
