U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) tweeted a video May 24 of his appearance on Fox News concerning the southern border crisis, specifically the fentanyl crisis.
In the interview, Steube said fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans in the age range of 18 to 49. Steube also mentioned that fentanyl is being sent to the Mexican cartels from Chinese suppliers and then entering the country via the southern border, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of American deaths.
"The leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49 is fentanyl overdose. Americans are dying," the congressman said. "It’s past time to shut down the southern border."
In his appearance on Fox News, Steube commented on the fact that fentanyl overdose deaths quadrupled between 2016 and 2021. He said there are “over 100,000 a year that are dying from fentanyl overdoses in this country.” He went on to say, “We know for a fact that [fentanyl] is coming in from the southern border, and we have an administration that is ignoring that when Americans are dying.”
In an appearance on Fox News, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that the Biden administration is “willing to turn a blind eye to the more than 100,000 people who died last year” due to drug overdose, two-thirds of which was from “Chinese fentanyl coming across our southern border.” Cruz tweeted May 19 that Biden “is directly responsible for the crisis taking place."
In 2022, ABC News reported that Chinese drug dealers were sending fentanyl ingredients to the cartels in Mexico, who then smuggled it across the border into the U.S. Of the 11,000 pounds of fentanyl that made its way into the U.S. in 2021, over 50% of it entered either at the southern border or through San Diego.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told ABC that "America is being poisoned with fentanyl, and we don't even know it.”
According to a Fox News poll, just above 51% of voters in America currently think that border security has worsened in the last two years, while 11% think it has improved. In 2018, 17% of voters thought the border security was getting worse while 28% believed it was improving. Thirty-seven percent now believe that border security is the same, as compared to 50% in 2018.
