This article first appeared in New English Review.
One of our close family members is a drug and alcohol counselor. In the past two years, she has seen three people she knew die from fentanyl overdoses, the last one just days ago. Another was an old high school friend who died recently in San Francisco. For those of you not familiar with fentanyl, it is a synthetically produced opioid. There is legitimately produced fentanyl used primarily for purposes of anesthesia. Produced illicitly, it becomes a highly potent street drug, many times stronger than heroin and mixed with other drugs like heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and pills to produce a stronger effect. It is about 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. It is so potent that it is deadly.
When I was working with DEA in Pittsburgh from 1987-1990, we worked on a major fentanyl case in concert with the Pittsburgh PD. After 13 addicts died from injecting fentanyl, which they thought was "China white" heroin, we were finally able to take down the distributor and identify the chemist. I previously posted an article on this episode which can be read here. (I apologize for the brief humor at the end of the post because I am reposting it today in a spirit of sadness and outrage.)
That was in 1989. Now the problem is much worse. Since 2015, over 200,000 people in our country have died from fentanyl overdoses.
Fentanyl today (or its precursors) is primarily produced in China and smuggled to Mexico from where the drug cartels smuggle it into the US. (Like virtually all drug trafficking patterns, this is subject to change.)
This leads me to my main point. Given that most illicit fentanyl is produced in China and smuggled to the US via Mexico by the Mexican cartels, and given the incredible number of American deaths involved, would that not be enough reason in itself to control our border? No brainer, right? Wrong.
Instead, the Biden administration and its feckless director of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, refuse to take any meaningful action. Basically, our southern border is wide open. Former President Trump's border wall has been discontinued, and now illegal migrants have become "asylum-seekers". They don't have to sneak across our border anymore and try to make their way to wherever their destination is. All they have to do now is seek out the nearest Border Patrol officer and claim political asylum. Now they are being processed and released with an order to report to an immigration court in 6 months or so-which they ignore. Now, the Border Patrol is putting them on planes and flying them to various points across the US in the dead of night, releasing them. From there, they just disappear.
Meanwhile, people like Mayorkas, Biden, Vice President Harris (our "border czar"), and White House press spokesperson Karina Jean-Pierre insist with a straight face that our border has never been more secure. Secure for whom, illegal migrants, human smugglers, and drug smugglers?
Their denials would be laughable were it not for the tragic results of this lax border policy. American youth are dying from fentanyl overdoses by the tens of thousands every year. They are mostly young people. Yes, they are addicts, but they are human beings. Our own government is acting like it doesn't care. It is disgraceful and borders on criminal negligence.
We need a government that will stand up to China and its economic stranglehold over the US. Chinese imports need to be drastically reduced for many reasons. That includes legal imports, to say nothing of cracking down on the fentanyl traffic. We need a government that will secure our borders and protect the American people from cartels, gangs, drugs, and terrorists from countries in the far-away Middle East, Afghanistan, or wherever they are coming from. And make no mistake; unidentified people from the above regions are now using Mexico as a transit stop to enter the US. It is not just Mexicans or Central Americans trying to cross our border with Mexico.
As I have said many times; I fully understand the reasons desperately poor Mexicans and Central Americans try to come here illegally. I lay the blame on those countries that do nothing to provide their poor people with education and opportunities. But we cannot turn a blind eye to the criminal elements who are part of this wave. The fentanyl crisis should be the last straw. It appears that China and Mexico are both unable and/or unwilling to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US. A change in diplomatic and economic relations should follow. More than ever, our southern border should be secured. That means completing the wall and letting our now demoralized Border Patrol and Customs Enforcement agents do their job of stopping illegal immigration and drug smuggling. However, it is clear that it won't happen under Biden. If he allows this deadly epidemic to continue with his lax border policies, it will just be another chapter to a sorry legacy.
It must be stopped.
6 comments:
The Biden administration is doing nothing? A quick Google search of "fentanyl seizure" shows that they are seizing millions of dollars worth of the stuff at the border.
https://www.borderreport.com/immigration/border-crime/fentanyl-busts-skyrocket-to-new-high-with-bulk-of-seizures-at-u-s-ports-of-entry/
I'm sure that there are some legitimate criticisms that can be made, but to suggest that the border is "wide open" and nothing is being done is simply untrue. It's hard to take your criticisms seriously when you start with such a false premise.
However, even if I grant this point, your entire approach continues the decades-long failed "war on drugs." (Funny how conservatives are always against "big government" but support that losing cause.)
The thing is, would all this fentanyl be coming here if nobody was buying it in the first place? Of course not. We need to address the demand. That's a tougher issue though. Maybe we should look at what countries that have lower drug abuse problems than us have been doing? That would involve decriminalization. But hey, let's just keep doing the thing that we know doesn't work and never has worked.
As for the wall, give me a break. There are so many ways to get past a wall. (You're aware of boats and planes, right?) People can climb over, tunnel under, etc., as has been demonstrated. Building a wall will do nothing to solve the problem and only waste a lot of money. (Perhaps it will stand for centuries as a monument to stupidity though, and future generations can laugh at our folly.)
Five million illegal immigrants in the last two fiscal years tells me they are doing zilch. In fact, most of drug seizures occur at the ports of entry, where inspectors do their job.
Have you seen the scenes at places like Del Rio etc.? The border is wide open.
The "war on drugs" (which even I put in quotes) continues, not to round up addicts, but to go after drug traffickers. They are vicious criminals and there is no apology due for putting them in jail.
Decriminalization? You want to decriminalize trafficking and smuggling of illicit fentanyl?
I do agree that reducing demand is a key. I strongly believe in education and treatment, but we still need enforcement directed at the traffickers.
As for the wall, yes, drugs can come in by air or boat. When I was in Customs, I was in a group dedicated to smuggling from Mexico by private aircraft, so I know all about it. Setting the drugs aside, a wall, properly constructed could cut down on the human smuggling.
It's amazing how some folks shoot down every single measure to secure our borders and fight drug traffciking. The only answers are decriminalization of drugs (which still requires enforcement of the rules and restrictions) and "immigration reform", which means letting anybody in with a"path to citizenship". It's all working out great, right?
I'll admit that I haven't done as much reading on this as maybe I should have, but I've done enough to know that you are over-simplifying everything in order to further the right-wing narrative.
How many illegal immigrants came over during the Trump administration? What other factors (like the pandemic) might have been involved? (From my understanding, he did a lot to curb LEGAL immigration moreso than curbing illegal immigration.) Also, deportations increased due to some of Trump's policies but were still far below what we saw under both Bush and Obama.
Also, how many of these immigrants have simply crossed the border and would have at least been slown down by a border wall? You do know that most illegal immigrants are here because they are on an expired visa, right? (So, they crossed legally and then stayed too long.)
As for decriminalization - yes. (At the very least, we should decriminalize possession.) When has making a drug illegal ever done anything but make things worse? People either find a way to get it or they turn to something that's just as bad or even worse. (Heroin was illegal so people started making meth, for example.)
We need to deal with the fact that much of the demand is a byproduct of the opioid crisis in this country. People get proscribed painkillers by their doctors, get hooked, and then look for alternatives when their prescription runs out. Bottom line? Drug use is a health problem, not a crime problem, and that's how it needs to be addressed.
What, exactly, would building a wall "properly" be? I know that they have some use when we're talking a relatively small border, but we're talking about 2000 miles here. And then once it's built, it would need to be maintained.
Let's say that I agree that a wall would help. It's never going to get done. Trump said that he'd have it built and Mexico would pay for it. The end result is that we became the laughing stock of the world.
Just because I shoot down dumb ideas, that doesn't mean that I shoot down all ideas. (Or that I think that "letting anybody in" is the answer.)
Lastly, it's still objectively wrong to say that the Biden administration is doing "zilch" when there were 1.66 million arrests in 2021 (which is the all-time high record). Only in the right-wing blogosphere is breaking records for arrests the exact same as doing nothing.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-biden-us-mexico-border/
I don't know how many illegals came in under TRump. I do know that he tried to stop it. Biden is not. The legal immigration Trump tried to stop was from countries that posed a terror threat and had governments that we were unable to work with.
From 1978-82, I was stationed in LA working in a group devoted to SE heroin trafficking, which involved members of the local Thai community. (Not all, certainly, or even a large fraction). What we encountered was lots of so-called "Robin Hoods" in the Thai jargon. Overstays. Of course, it is a problem and our laws should be enforced against that as well.
"(Heroin was illegal so people started making meth, for example.)"
Meth is also illegal. Other reasons were involved. At various times and places, heroin became hard to get.
DEA has a Diversion section devoted to controlled substances that are legally prescribed. There are some doctors and pharmacists who illegally prescribe or furnish controlled substances. Yes, drug use in itself is a health problem, but much of that also involves crimes committed to support one's habit. My point, however, is that drug dealing and trafficking etc is a criminal matter.
I am no engineer, but the experts (Border Patrol agents) have said that a secondary barrier is also necessary to give agents time to respond to climbers. Expensive? Of course. Keep in mind that we still have ports of entry, so it's not like we are trying to keep all non-Americans out of the country. Just come legally. Trump was silly to say over and over again that Mexico would pay for it. I suspect his intent was to reduce foreign aid to Mexico for the costs. But given the scale of illegal migration, the drugs coming over, the cartels, the human smugglers and the hundreds of people who die making the trek, I think the wall should be built. We now have an intolerable situation, and its time that countries like Mexico, Honduras, Guatamala, Haiti etc start building better countries for their citizens. It's interesting that we don't see Costa Ricans trying to come here any way they can. That's because they have a decent, functional and democratic society unlike their neighbors.
Having worked in govt. and knowing a thing or two about how important statistics are to bureaucrats, I am wondering how many of those 1.66 million arrests involved border crossers willingly turning themselves over to BP and claiming asylum. How many border crossers "got away"? We don't know.
I don't know where you're basing your "Biden isn't stopping people" opinion on other than it's just what you FEEL is true. I gave you the numbers, and you're skeptical as to what those arrests mean. Would you be asking the same questions if the same figures were given under a Republican regime?
I mean, the previous record was under Bush. Do you question that, too?
Maybe it's just that Democrats don't use illegal immigration as a talking point as much as the Republicans do, so it seems like the Republicans are the only ones who are doing anything. (They always seem to bring it up when they have a scandal or it's an election year.)
Oh, I also don't know if Border Patrol agents are necessarily experts when it comes to building a wall. Their opinion on whether an impenetrable wall would help matters, but they don't necessarily know anything about what it would take to build one. I'd say that we should ask the engineers on that one.
Why wouldn't I question stats from Republican administrations? I am not a Republican.
What I said about the BP as being experts, is that they say they would need a secondary wall to further slow down the crossers until agents could intercept them. I said nothing about them being experts on the construction of the wall. You are putting words into my mouth.
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