by Bryan Preston
As PJ Media has reported this week, the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is worsening. A dozen Texas counties, many of them not directly situated on the border, have declared emergencies due to the explosive increase in human trafficking that the open border is facilitating.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that the open border is facilitating an additional outbreak of lawlessness. The opioid fentanyl is now flooding across the border.
A porous border and weak security ties with Mexico have resulted in large influxes of fentanyl, a highly addictive and lethal drug, across the southern border. Between October 2020 and March 2021, customs agents seized more than 2.5 tons of fentanyl—a more than 300 percent year-on-year increase. Since 2019, cartels have enjoyed soaring profits due to increased demand for the drug in the United States. More than 90,000 Americans overdosed on illicit drugs last year.
Biden’s policies have led directly to weakening cooperation between American and Mexican drug interdiction agencies.
Cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities to target cartels has deteriorated amid a surge of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Matthew Donahue, the DEA deputy chief of operations, told NPR. Donahue said Mexican law enforcement have cut off ties with the DEA, fearing punishment from the Mexican government if they cooperate with the U.S. agency—a breakdown that has helped cartels smuggle fentanyl and methamphetamines into the United States.
“It’s a national health threat, it’s a national safety threat,” Donahue said. “[The cartels] do not fear any kind of law enforcement … or military inside of Mexico right now.”
Why would they? The open border has created a massive economic boom for the cartels, which were already far better funded than Mexico’s police and military combined.
Fentanyl is one of the primary drugs flooding across the border. The majority of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals come from one place: China. The Drug Enforcement Agency detailed China’s hand in the fentanyl trade in a January 2020 report.
Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States. Seizures of fentanyl sourced from China average less than one kilogram in weight, and often test above 90 percent concentration of pure fentanyl.
That DEA report also notes that most fentanyl that originates in China enters the United States through Mexico via the cartels. Opening the border should have been anticipated to make it far easier to move fentanyl into the country.
It’s possible that fentanyl is an instrument of China’s foreign policy. China’s communist government controls or strongly influences nearly all businesses of any size throughout the country. It’s impossible that the Chinese government is unaware of the fentanyl trade or that it is doing all it can to stop it. Since 2014 the highly addictive, very powerful, and very profitable drug has become ubiquitous on American streets, causing havoc and tens of thousands of deaths…
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