Poignant testimony delivered during a Feb. 28 Congressional hearing on the U.S. border crisis brought legislators to a firm conclusion: failed or ineffective immigration policies are directly fueling America’s drug crisis.
“Our country faces record fatalities from drug overdoses, eclipsing 100,000 deaths, 71,000 from synthetic opioids alone,” Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said during the hearing.
At the forefront of this crisis is fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more potent than morphine. Most of the substance is making its way into the United States from Mexico, much of which is smuggled in by drug cartels.
Though fentanyl seizures at official ports of entry on the U.S. border are on the rise, Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County, Arizona, told the committee that border apprehensions of fentanyl account for only half of what makes it into the United States….