Old North News

Two recent, major illicit fentanyl drug seizures in California are underscoring a crisis in the making in the United States as overdose rates climb. Some say the problem is due to President Joe Biden’s border policy.

A synthetic opioid (pain-relieving drug) that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine, fentanyl “is a major contributor to fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the U.S.,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Pharmaceutical fentanyl and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are synthetic opioids.

Drug overdose deaths in North Carolina skyrocketed in 2021, according to the NC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Nearly 4,000 people died of a drug overdose in the state last year, up from 3,132 deaths in 2020 and 2,688 in 2019.

During 2021, there were an estimated 107,622 drug overdose deaths in the United States, according to provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The number of deaths related to synthetic opioids (fentanyl) outpaced other drugs, NCHS data showed. Fentanyl deaths increased from 57,834 in 2020 to 71,238 in 2021.

“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 said on Twitter.

The House Republicans’ tweet referenced a vehicle search during a traffic stop on June 24, in Tulare, California, which led to the seizure of 150,000 fentanyl pills in the possession of two Washington state men. The pills reportedly had a street value of $750,000, as each pill sells for about $5, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page said. They seized 150 packages with 1,000 fentanyl pills in each which equaled enough to potentially kill several million people, according to Fox News.

Jose Zendejas, 25, and Benito Madrigal, 19, were arrested and face charges of possession, transportation and sale of illegal drugs. Although they were booked at the Tulare County Pre-Trial Facility, the two were released “from custody on their own recognizance.”

“Although Sheriff (Mike) Boudreaux strongly disagrees with the release of these individuals as a matter of public safety, the court order release must be followed,” the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page said on June 27.

A traffic stop on June 30 in Barstow, California, resulted in the seizure of approximately 20 pounds of blue fentanyl pills packaged in plastic bags, which had an estimated street value of $350,000, the Barstow Police Department’s Facebook page said. The vehicle’s driver, Oscar Josue Hernandez Escoto, 27, and the two passengers, Jose Raul Hernandez Avila, 36, and Osman Dominguez, 24, all from Honduras, were arrested. Booked at the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Jail, the three face charges of possession of fentanyl for sale and transportation of fentanyl with intent to sell.

Over 90% “of the 10,000 pounds of fentanyl seized in fiscal year 2021 occurred at legal border entry points in California and Arizona-- areas where roughly 30% of migrants are entering the U.S.,” the New York Post quoted from U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.

A Biden administration plan to lift Title 42, a “Trump-era policy used to expel more than one million migrants at the southern border,” was blocked on May 20 by U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays of Louisiana, who granted a preliminary injunction, POLITICO said.

“The Department of Homeland Security is bracing for as many as 18,000 migrants per day at the southern border if Title 42 is revoked,” ABC News reported.