U.S. SENATE News:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Thursday, U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), alongside Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), led their Senate colleagues in a letter to President Joe Biden outlining the urgent need for robust funding for border security and drug interdiction efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl and similar illicit drugs being smuggled across the border through official ports of entry.

In fiscal year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 240,000 pounds of drugs at the southwest land border, which included an estimated 1.1 billion doses of fentanyl. Forty-four percent of total drug seizures and 99 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at the southwest land border.

“In order to meaningfully address the fentanyl crisis, law enforcement officers at our Nation’s borders must be equipped to combat the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs. We must also support the law enforcement agencies that are investigating these smuggling and trafficking crimes and working to disrupt the transnational criminal networks that threaten our country and our communities,” the Senators wrote. 

The effort comes on the heels of a push to include border security funding and immigration policy changes in a national security emergency spending bill—which Senate Republicans ultimately blocked after negotiating the deal. The original bipartisan deal included funding to secure the southwest border by hiring additional border protection officers and providing additional border security inspection technology and equipment to detect and stop fentanyl flowing into the United States through official ports of entry along the southwest border—provisions also included in Casey and Luján’s Stop Fentanyl at the Border Act, which Heinrich cosponsors, and the FEND Off Fentanyl Act.

In addition to Casey, the letter to President Biden was signed by U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). 

Read the full letter here.