GOP lawmakers demand ‘decisive action’ from Biden amid increase in fentanyl at the border

FIRST ON FOX: Republican lawmakers are urging President Biden to take “decisive motion” on the fentanyl disaster — noting a major improve within the quantity of the lethal drug seized on the southern border, and expressing “deep concern” over what they are saying is inaction by the administration.

Greater than 10,586 lbs of fentanyl had been seized on the southern border in FY 2021, up considerably from the 4,558 lbs in FY 2020 and a couple of,633 in FY 2019. Customs and Border Safety (CBP) final month stated it had seen a “substantial improve” in fentanyl seizures.

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Whereas this quantity exhibits a rise in profitable interceptions of the drug by regulation enforcement, Republicans have expressed concern that, like with the quantity of migrants coming to the border, it signifies that larger quantities are coming north and could possibly be getting by means of elsewhere previous border authorities.

The 18 lawmakers, led by Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., wrote to Biden warning of rising drug overdoses lately, and criticized his failure to say the fentanyl subject throughout his one-year press convention in addition to his administrations “unwillingness to safe the border” since being in workplace.

“Households who’ve misplaced family members from a drug overdose throughout the nation deserve decisive motion on this subject,” they write in a letter to the White Home. “Your administration’s inaction of trigger for deep concern.”

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The letter additionally criticized efforts by the Biden administration to supply grants to secure smoking and syringe packages, and the Division of Justice collaborations with operators of secure injection websites. In addition they criticize a proposal by the administration associated to fentanyl analogues — fentanyl-related substances that may be much more potent than fentanyl itself.

“Your administration’s proposal would exempt these substances from quantity-based necessary minimal sentences,” they write. “We’re deeply involved that scheduling these analogues with out the mandatory felony penalties will incentivize traffickers to make new variations of those positions in an effort to evade regulation enforcement.”

The lawmakers ask Biden if addressing fentanyl is a “high precedence” for the administration, and what its plan of motion is to fight the problem. Individually they request solutions to various questions in regards to the coverage on fentanyl analogues — together with whom it consulted, and the information used to make the choice.

A current report by the bipartisan Fee on Combating Artificial Opioid Trafficking stated the supply of fentanyl into the U.S. has advanced from 2014-2019, when most fentanyl got here in from China by way of worldwide mail. Now, the report stated, it is available in from Mexico by way of the land border.

 “The drug is manufactured in unlawful laboratories there utilizing precursors from Asia – primarily the [People’s Republic of China] – and is trafficked principally by land into the US.”

Final month, Florida Lawyer Common Ashley Moody referred to as on President Biden and congressional management to take “quick and forceful motion to regain management” of the border.

“As we acknowledge the President’s first yr in workplace, we can’t ignore the truth that the escalating disaster on the border is having a devastating impact on our efforts to finish the nationwide opioid epidemic and save lives,” she wrote