One of the most poignant moments of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address was his remembrance of the tens of thousands of Americans who have lost their lives to the surging opioid epidemic.
No. Not really.
In reality, he paid lip service to America’s opioid crisis which has been exacerbated by his administration’s open border policies. As the vast quantities of dangerous drugs flowing over our porous southern border reaches record levels, fentanyl overdoses have become the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45.
Drug trafficking has become a lucrative business for the well-organized and ruthless cartels who keep finding innovative ways to smuggle massive quantities of deadly substances into the U.S.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Otay Mesa, California, recently intercepted 1,336 pounds of methamphetamine cleverly concealed inside a shipment of onions, according to a CBP news release. The agency estimates the street value of these drugs to be $2.9 million.
On Feb. 20, a tractor trailer arrived at the facility carrying a huge shipment of onions. A CBP officer referred the 46-year-old driver for a more thorough inspection.
A detector dog from the CBP’s canine team identified the presence of drugs in the shipment. Officers discovered that close to 1,200 small packages of methamphetamine had been artfully disguised as onions, according to the CBP.
The report said: “The packages of methamphetamine were shaped into small globes with a white covering, designed to blend into the onions they were hidden with.”
Sidney Aki, CBP Director of Field Operations in San Diego, said, “This was not only a clever attempt to try and smuggle in narcotics, one I haven’t seen before, but also time consuming to wrap narcotics into these small packages, designed to look like onions. These efforts show how effective our officers are, and as a response, the lengths drug trafficking organizations are willing to go to as they try to smuggle narcotics into the U.S.”
“While we have certainly seen narcotics in produce before, it’s unusual for us to see this level of detail in the concealment,” he added.
The driver, a Mexican citizen, was arrested and turned over “to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) for further disposition.”
Given the leniency of Biden Administration officials, he’s probably already been flown to the U.S. city of his choice to await his court appearance. Although I’m being facetious, that may not be all that far from the truth.
Although CBP agents have seized vast quantities of drugs at the border, the skyrocketing number of opioid overdose deaths being reported indicate that a high number of smuggling attempts are successful.
From the cartels’ perspective, however, a little bit can go a long way. This means that even if a large percentage of shipments are intercepted, what makes it through will still bring a profit.
Drugs can be easily made or grown before being shipped, carried, or otherwise tossed over the border. They can be hidden in anything or with anything. They can be disguised as onions or stashed away in a concealed compartment.
In a February interview with The New York Post’s Angie Wong, former acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said the cartels are now controlling the border. Wong reported that CBP agents “now coordinate with the cartels and coyotes on where and when drop-offs will happen.”
Describing three days she’d spent “on the front lines of the Biden administration’s illegal-immigration crisis,” Wong wrote she “found a Border Patrol that has changed from an enforcement agency to a concierge service. The southern border of the United States has become a suggestion, a line that vanishes a little more each day.”
She continued: “Even if the government wanted to secure the border, there aren’t enough officers to police the hundreds arriving each day. So the Border Patrol has made deals with the devils.”
Cartels’ ability to operate virtually unhindered in Mexico is bad news for Americans. Notwithstanding Biden’s duplicitous call to secure the border in his State of the Union speech, there is zero evidence he has any intention of changing course.
A previous version of this article was published on The Western Journal.
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Three cheers for the drug K-9 for doing a job beyond the limits of human perceptibility. Those working dogs are awesome! Kudos to the handler for recognizing the dog’s alert, no matter how subtle it may have been…