WASHINGTON — A bipartisan House trio is introducing a bill Thursday aimed at reducing the influx. fentanyl on the southern border of the United States.
The Stop Fentanyl at the Border Act, co-sponsor of the current bipartisan Senate bill in the House, Reps. Gabe Vasquez, DN.M., Eric Sorensen, D-Ill. and represented by Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore. The bill targets two key issues in the 2024 election — immigration and the opioid crisis — as all three members face tough re-election battles in November.
The bill would provide more than $5 billion to increase personnel and technology to detect illegal drugs, weapons and other contraband across the US-Mexico border.
There are at least 31 scanning systems, known as non-intrusive screening systems, which are already in place along the border in personnel vehicles at dozens of ports of entry under construction. The scanners are the most powerful tool the Biden administration has to detect fentanyl in vehicles crossing the border, the Department of Homeland Security previously told NBC News.
Congress should appropriate funding to deploy scanners at the border. Some of that money was released in May after NBC News reported that most of the high-tech scanners were available it sits unused in warehouses.
“The opioid crisis continues to harm American families,” Vasquez told NBC News by phone on Wednesday. “This bill will help deal a major blow to what the cartel is trying to do to get these drugs into our country.”
In 2022, nearly 74,000 Americans died from overdoses of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. according to National Institute on Drug Addiction.
In addition to introducing Non-Intrusive Inspection Systems, the bicameral bill would fund more law enforcement officers and border agents.
Congress passed a bipartisan bill earlier this year to expand sanctions against fentanyl traffickers in Mexico and Chinese chemical suppliers to President Joe Biden signed passed into law as part of a national security package.
Most of Capitol Hill’s efforts to resolve the southern border have fizzled since Republicans led by former President Donald Trump. killed the bipartisan border security bill in a competitive election year.
Despite broad bipartisan support, Trump and his House allies refused to compromise, insisting instead on the conservative HR 2 proposal that passed the House last year on a party-line vote. The Democratic-controlled Senate failed to pass the bill, with Biden vowing to veto it.
“Even though fentanyl is the biggest health crisis we’re facing, it’s a shame what we’re seeing in Congress today,” said Vasquez, who will flip his seat from red to blue in 2022. “Politics is standing in our way. Finding solutions to prevent these drugs from coming into the country.”
Vasquez hinted at an upcoming rematch against former GOP Rep. Yvette Herrell: “Unfortunately, MAGA Republicans like Donald Trump and my opponent are saying, ‘Well, that’s not enough.’
Sorensen, like Vasquez, has met with constituents who have lost family members, including children, to fentanyl overdoses. His swing district of northwestern Illinois is hundreds of miles from Mexico, and yet the issue has rocked even his backyard.
“I’m not going to wait for Congress to figure out how to make policy to solve this problem,” he told NBC News outside the Capitol on Wednesday. “I don’t want to get another call from a mother who lost a child to this.”
The bill has bicameral and bipartisan support, but its future is murky less than four months before the election.
Vasquez suggested lawmakers could instead insist on broad, comprehensive packages — House Republicans’ HR 2 and Senate Democrats’ efforts to pass a bipartisan bill in May, neither of which have a chance of becoming law this year.
Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican in Oregon’s key swing district, said for her, the fentanyl issue is above politics. “Oregon is number 50 in drug recovery and number one in drug addiction,” he said. “So it’s just silly for us to turn a blind eye to it.”
“When people say, ‘well, it’s an election year, well, we don’t want to work with vulnerable Democrats,’ how many children can we lose before we decide to close and secure the southern border under these policies?” ?” he asked, criticizing the Biden administration for its “open border policy.”
Sorensen, who is also up for re-election in a competitive race, said he did not blame Biden.
“I don’t think pointing fingers at each other really does anything to solve the problem,” Sorensen said.
“Politics be damned, we’ll do our job,” he said.