The Sconi

Following a week where a pair of major drug busts in California led to seizures of fentanyl pills with a combined street value topping $1 million, a growing number of critics of President Joe Biden’s open border policies are again taking him to task.

"President Biden’s open-border policies are incentivizing drug smuggling that allows poisonous fentanyl to flood across the southern border and endanger our communities," House Republicans posted on Twitter in the aftermath.

During a traffic stop in Tulare, California, late last month, county detectives recovered 150,000 fentanyl pills belonging to two Washington men during a traffic stop, Fox News reported. Authorities said with each pill selling for about $5 each, the overall street value for the drugs stood in the neighborhood of $750,000.

Despite facing charges that include possession, transportation and the selling of illegal drugs, FoxNews reported both men have now been released. The 150 packages seized, with 1,000 fentanyl pills in each, amounted to enough drugs to potentially kill several million people.

Just days later, CBS News reported detectives from the Barstow Police Department and Alameda County Sheriff's Department seized nearly 20 pounds of blue fentanyl pills in plastic bags from a Toyota Camry in Barstow, California. Authorities estimate that the drugs recovered carry a street value of up to $350,000, adding that three men from Honduras have been taken into custody on charges that include possession of fentanyl for sale and transportation of fentanyl with intent to sale.

In 2021, there were an estimated 107,622 drug overdose deaths across the country, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The soaring numbers represent a new record.

NCHS data also showed that the number of deaths related to synthetic opioids (fentanyl) far outpaced that of any other drug, with fentanyl deaths jumping by 23% from 2020 (57,834) to 2021 (71,238).

Customs and Border Patrol statistics further highlight that upwards of 90% of the 10,000 pounds of fentanyl seized in fiscal year 2021 took place at legal border entry points in California and Arizona, locations where roughly one out of every three migrants are now entering the U.S. on a daily basis, according to The New York Post. 

Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced plans to lift Title 42, a pandemic regulation that has been used to quickly exile migrants at the southern border. Border patrol agents have warned such an action could trigger a major surge in illegal migrant border crossings, ABC News reported. The Department of Homeland Security is bracing for an influx of as many as 18,000 migrants per day at the southern border if the policy is overturned.

Back in May, U.S. District Judge Robert R. Summerhays of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction that blocks the White House from moving to lift Title 42.

Here in Wisconsin, fentanyl was involved in more than 75% of deaths during 2021 and the state saw 1,227 opioid-related deaths in 2020.  Fentanyl in West Central Wisconsin is considered a “high-intensity drug trafficking area” by the federal government. Eau Claire is situated along Interstate 94, one of the major corridors through Wisconsin, which runs between Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Chicago, which makes it relatively easy to transport drugs longer distances in less time, according to Spectrum News 1.