Old North News

Drug overdose deaths in North Carolina skyrocketed in 2021, according to data from the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, mirroring a national trend that some are blaming on President Joe Biden’s open border policy.

“The cartels are exploiting Biden’s open border and poisoning our country with fentanyl. #BidenBorderCrisis," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Twitter. 

Last year's fentanyl death rate has caused the country's opioid problem to become an urgent crisis. A record 107,622 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021, according to provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). NCHS data indicate the number of deaths related to synthetic opioids (fentanyl) far outpaced that of any other drug. Fentanyl deaths climbed to 71,238 in 2021, a 23% increase over 2020’s 57,834 fentanyl fatalities. 

In North Carolina, drug overdoses killed nearly 4,000 people last year, representing a 26% increase from 2020 and a 47% increase from 2019. 

As Biden continues to push for an open border policy, border patrol agents do not have the manpower to adequately perform their jobs. With that, experts have reported that Mexican drug cartels are taking advantage of the chaotic influx of migrants at the border to smuggle thousands of pounds of deadly fentanyl into the country. 

The New York Post reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics show that more than 90% of the 10,000 pounds of fentanyl seized in the fiscal year 2021 occurred at legal border entry points in California and Arizona —places where roughly 30% of migrants are entering the US daily. 

“Border patrol agents are too busy dealing with the influx of migrants, and are not really focused on looking for fentanyl,” Robert Almonte, a Texas-based security consultant and former deputy chief of the El Paso Police Department, said in that article. “Border agents are not getting the support they need from the federal government to stop the flow of fentanyl, which is killing thousands of Americans.”

The 20.4 million counterfeit pills seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2021 alone represent enough fentanyl to provide a lethal dose to every American, a DEA release said. 

In addition to producing fentanyl in pill form, the opioid is being added to other drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, to increase their potency, the Post reports. 

“We’re losing more people to fentanyl overdoes than guns, suicides and traffic accidents combined,” Almonte told The Post. “This is a crisis. I get mad because I don’t think people get mad enough about what’s happening.”

In April, the Biden Administration announced plans to lift Title 42, a pandemic regulation that had been used to quickly expel migrants at the southern border. If this regulation is lifted, border patrol agents predict a major surge in illegal migrant border crossings. ABC News reports that the DHS is bracing for as many as 18,000 migrants per day at the southern border if Title 42 is revoked. 

On May 20, U.S. District Judge Robert R. Summerhays of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction that stops the Biden Administration from lifting Title 42.