For America’s enemies, the literal poisoning of the nation by means of the opioid crisis is by far one of their most nefarious achievements.
In a signal that the crisis continues to rage on at astonishing levels, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz announced that in the last five months, agents have seized over 465 lbs of fentanyl — enough to kill 100 million people.
Put into perspective, that’s enough narcotic to wipe out the populations of California and New York combined.
According to Ortiz, these figures refer to fentanyl seized at ports of entry since the start of the fiscal year in October. The border chief revealed these numbers while discussing a recent case in which an illegal migrant was caught carrying 93 lbs of fentanyl.
“In the month of January alone, agents seized 55 firearms [and] over 6,800 lbs of narcotics, which included enough fentanyl to kill over 60 million people,” Ortiz told the public.
On Tuesday, Ortiz said agents found five bundles of narcotics in the possession of a smuggler group caught in the desert near Nogales, Arizona. Not only were 24 lbs of fentanyl confiscated, but so was a significant amount of meth, cocaine and marijuana.
Per numbers obtained by Fox News, of the 108,000 overdose deaths that occurred in the United States in 2021, over 80,000 involved opioids like fentanyl. The danger behind these substances is that they are often mixed into other drugs so that users don’t even know what they’re actually taking.
Most fentanyl is made in Mexico with ingredients shipped in from China. The finished product is usually smuggled across the southern border and typically discovered, when intercepted, at ports of entry by Customs and Border Patrol’s (CBP) Office of Field Operations (OFO).
Fox News noted of the trends in fentanyl seizures at the Mexican border:
According to CBP’s January update, Border Patrol agents at the northern and southern borders seized 264 lbs of fentanyl in January, up from 66 lbs in January last year and just 5 lbs in December.
However, the amount seized when including OFO’s seizures at ports of entry is much higher. Overall, 1,200 lbs of fentanyl were seized in January across all ports of entry, up from 796 lbs from January last year — but down from the massive 6,200 lbs seized in December. Overall this fiscal year so far 12,000 lbs have been seized by OFO.
Seizures at the ports themselves were highlighted this week when CBP officers in Nogales nabbed nearly 200,000 fentanyl pills and two pounds of powder under the seat of a vehicle.
Officials claim there has been a recent drop in migrant encounters at the border, with 156,274 in January compared to the record 251,978 encounters in December.
However, that is still higher than the 154,874 encounters in January of 2022 and much higher than the 78,414 in January of 2021.
But Ortiz maintained there has been a reduction in “getaways” — illegal aliens who were detected by surveillance equipment or other methods but who ultimately evaded capture by border agents. According to Ortiz there has been a 32 percent drop in getaways.
Despite the implied optimism behind Ortiz’s assurances, Americans who have to live with the consequences of a failed migrant policy are quick to point out who really runs things at the border.
Residents and local government officials in the border town of Yuma, Arizona, say that it is the Mexican cartels, not the U.S. government, that are in control of the border.
Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines said that cartel-operated human-smuggling operations take advantage of the migrant surge to exhaust Border Patrol officials, who are stretched thin. Migrants who cannot afford to pay the cartel fee across the border can instead pay by carrying drugs with them or by working for the criminals.
Derek Maltz, the former chief of special operations of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has said that China is waging “unrestricted warfare” against the United States, unleashing a fentanyl epidemic to “kill our future generation.” Moreover, per Maltz, Beijing is “using the cartels as a proxy to destroy and destabilize our country.”
Of course, it doesn’t help when the very government agents who are supposed to be upholding America’s laws are participating in their subversion. The New American recently reported on the case of Nicholas Palmeri, the former and short-lived DEA regional director over Mexico who was removed from the role for maintaining questionable relationships with the lawyers of drug lords.
Meanwhile, the Biden White House has exacerbated the problem through complete mismanagement. The degree of the federal government’s failure to take control of the border crisis is exemplified by the release of data revealing that nearly 600,000 illegal migrants who crossed the border without authorization since March of 2021 were not even charged or given a date to appear in court prior to being released.
But these failures make sense when one understands that for those who seek power by eroding our institutions, anarchy is not random, but rather a deliberate tactic towards their final goal.
