Fentanyl, sourced from China and Mexico, claims the lives of 70,000 Americans annually. Despite this, Democrats argue that the GOP must support their migration expansion bill in Thursday’s vote to combat the deadly drug epidemic and save American lives.
“It is our duty to take action to keep these drugs off of our streets and to keep families safe,” Sen. Jeane Shaheen (D-NH) declared Wednesday, the day before the scheduled Senate vote on the Democrats’ pro-migration bill. “That’s why we need to pass the bipartisan border deal.”
“Republicans have a choice to make,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) also said, “they can either demonstrate that they are serious about border security and stopping the flow of fentanyl, or they can demonstrate with their vote that they were never serious all along.”
“We have to do something,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Wednesday, adding:
“Thanks to my Democratic colleagues who are here today, I thank them for highlighting how important this is for the [migration] bill. Our Republican friends are talking about ‘The borders! Close the borders, it has fentanyl!’ This bill will stop the flow of fentanyl in many large ways. Are they going to put their votes where their rhetoric is or are they going to play politics? It’s that simple.”
The Democrats’ border bill aims to speed up President Joe Biden’s inflow of low-wage economic migrants by broadening various asylum and parole gateways, without addressing deportations or illegal employment. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CN) boasted in a tweet when the bill was introduced in February, stating, “The border never closes.”
The bill would help “more migrants come here successfully and efficiently,” said progressive columnist Greg Sargent.
However, Democrats are refusing to debate the GOP’s rival HR-2 bill, which would both cut migration and reduce drug smuggling. “HR-2 would secure the border,” Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told a press conference on Wednesday, adding:
“But Schumer and [Sen. Dick] Durbin (R-Il) don’t have the spine to bring that bill forward and actually discuss border security. They’re not willing to say ‘We’re going take it up because we are sick and tired of seeing kids die from fentanyl poisoning.’
“The American people are smart — they understand hypocrisy when they see it, they understand cynicism when they see it.” Texas Sen. John Conyers told the reporters. He added:
“Senator Schumer and President Biden … think they can pull the wool over their eyes and somehow after three and a half years of open border policies claim that they are now the party of border security … Seventy-one thousand died from fentanyl [in 2023] and now the Democrats are claiming that they care about fentanyl poisoning after three and a half years of doing nothing other than facilitating the distribution of this poison to our kids all the way all across the country.”
As the Washington Post released fresh data on how fentanyl is claiming the lives of American teenagers, Democrats showed they were willing to hold fentanyl curbs hostage to their pro-migration bill. According to the data:
Across the country, fentanyl has largely fueled a more than doubling of overdose deaths among children ages 12 to 17 since the start of the pandemic, according to a Washington Post analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released this month.
Fatal overdoses in D.C., Maryland and Virginia are in keeping with the national increase in opioid fatalities, which until recently primarily claimed the lives of adults. In 2022, 45 teens succumbed to opioids locally, a number roughly equal to the previous three years combined, data show. And incomplete data for 2023 show no sign of the crisis abating in young people.
