The Biden Crises

Floor Speech

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Mrs. HARSHBARGER. Madam Speaker, America's drug epidemic hit a mild sobering milestone recently when last year over 100,000 people died of drug overdoses. There are 275 Americans dying every day. That is the highest level ever.

My home State of Tennessee experienced some 3,400 fatal drug overdoses, which is a 49 percent rise from the previous year.

Having served as a community pharmacist for over 30 years in East Tennessee, this is personal for me. Every one of those people are someone's parents or someone's children. The main driver of this increasing death toll is illegal synthetic fentanyl, which is inexpensive to manufacturer, can be 50 times stronger than heroin, and people can die from doses equal to only a few grains of sand.

Most illegal, counterfeit fentanyl is developed in China and trafficked into the U.S. across the border with Mexico by drug cartels and other criminals. As a Member of the Homeland Security Committee, I have been to the border to see things firsthand.

Customs and Border Protection officials outrightly admit that increasing amounts of illicit fentanyl being smuggled, infecting our communities, and fueling overdoses is largely due to the Biden administration's chaotic open border policies. When you have the drug totals up higher than what the cost is--you can get a dose for $20 on the street, which is unbelievable right now.

These open border policies are effectively a green light to Mexican drug cartels--looking to exploit an increasingly overloaded immigration system--to trafficking alarming amounts of counterfeit fentanyl across the border.

President Biden must take immediate action to reverse the border crisis his policies created, secure our southern border, and stop the influx of fentanyl pouring into our country and wreaking havoc on our communities.

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