Iowa’s Joni Ernst proposes fentanyl search on all vehicles at Southern border

Back from a tour of the San Diego-Mexico border and meetings with Mexican officials, Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst on Tuesday called on Democratic President Joe Biden to crack down of the flow of fentanyl entering the United States, including having every vehicle entering the Southern border screened by a drug-sniffing police dog.

Ernst spoke with reporters after returning from a visit with Iowa Republican U.S. Reps. Randy Feenstra and Mariannette Miller-Meeks to the San Diego sector of the U.S.-Mexico border and to Mexico City. Ernst called the Port of San Diego, the world’s busiest land border crossing, “the epicenter of fentanyl trafficking.”

“The lethal drugs that come through this sector of the border feed right into the Midwest,” said Ernst, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It is our joint responsibility with Mexico to bring an end to the fentanyl crisis and the resulting cartel violence. President Biden must present a clear plan that meets the challenges at the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s a complicated problem, but complicated can’t mean complacency.”

Ernst said the delegation met with members of the National Border Patrol Council, which outlined the difficulties border agents are facing curbing illegal border crossings, including outdated surveillance technology and a shortage of agents and K-9 units.

"Right now, our Border Patrol is demoralized," Ernst said. "They feel like Uber drivers and paper pushers instead of front-line agents who are pushing back on cartel activity and drug and human smuggling. Border Patrol told us they're seeing a trend of even more gotaways, people that illegally cross the border and are never caught, than people who were actually apprehended in the previous year."

Biden was expected to call on Congress during his State of the Union address Tuesday night to work with the administration to address the fentanyl crisis. Biden was to call for expanded access to opioid-related addiction treatment and announce he will ramp up efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking at the Southern border and through commercial delivery packages, according to a White House official.

Biden was expected to announce:

An official with the Office of National Drug Control Policy said the strategy is to go after the entire illicit global fentanyl supply chain and the profits that drive drug traffickers.

Provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more than 107,000 Americans died from a drug overdose in the 12 months ending in August 2022. Most of those deaths were caused by illicit synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine. That’s a slight decrease from the 110,315 fatal drug overdoses provisionally estimated for the 12 month period ending March 2022.

Ernst proposed improved relations with Mexico, the creation of an interagency task force in Mexico to deter the flow of drugs and increased K-9 units along the border. She said the port of entry in San Diego has 34 lanes of traffic with 70,000 vehicle and 20,000 pedestrian crossings each day, but only three to five K-9 units working on a given day.

“This initial K-9 screening should be conducted on every single vehicle entering this country, and right now that’s simply not happening,” Ernst said.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last year ended state troopers' increased inspections of commercial vehicles that gridlocked commercial traffic throughout the Texas-Mexico border for more than a week. The policy, which experts estimated cost hundreds of millions of dollars, did not result in any migrant detentions or illegal substance seizures, according to data released by the Department of Public Safety to The Texas Tribune.

Asked how she would avoid similar congestion, Ernst said vehicles with suspected drugs would be pulled into a secondary inspection area to help keep traffic moving.

“If we did have dogs available on all of those lanes, or every other lane, those dogs could quickly detect any illicit materials that are in those cars,” Ernst said. “We would have much greater coverage to be able to detect much more of the fentanyl coming in.”

Ernst said she did not have a figure on how much the inspections would cost, how many new dogs would be needed or how quickly they could be trained and deployed.

Miller-Meeks said the contingent also conducted classified briefings with numerous federal agencies in Mexico City regarding border security and other immigration issues.

"You know, Mexico is a willing partner," Miller-Meeks said. "They're capable. There are some things we can do, perhaps, in technology to help them. They have concerns about arms that get into the hands of cartels. We have concerns about drug trafficking and human smuggling, and then also the horrific things that go along with human smuggling, which is sex trafficking and unaccompanied minors coming into the United States."

Feenstra said the delegation also discussed a proposed ban in Mexico on genetically modified corn imports with Mexican officials.

"We talked about how 25 percent of corn exports go to Mexico," Feenstra said. "We had a great discussion with them about how we can move forward, and make sure we can continue the opportunity of exporting our corn to Mexico. We're hoping that there's a solution in the next six to 12 months regarding this issue."

Ahead of a House Oversight Committee hearing Tuesday on the border and immigration, the White House issued a memo accusing House Republicans of “staging political stunts” and undermining border security.

In the memo obtained by The Gazette, White House Counsel’s Office spokesman and Special Assistant to the President Ian Sams credited a series of new immigration and border security actions by the administration with reducing southern border crossings last month. Sams also lambasted House Republicans for voting against last year’s omnibus spending bill that included billions of dollars in border security funding and accused them of “pushing an agenda that would make border security worse.”

“It is clear that House Republicans are more interested in staging political stunts than on rolling up their sleeves to work with President Biden and Democrats in Congress on legislation to strengthen border security and fix our immigration system that has needed repair for decades,” Sams wrote.

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