U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill aimed at curbing the flow of fentanyl across the southern border.
The "Stop Fentanyl at the Border Act," announced Thursday during a virtual news conference, proposes allocating $5.3 billion to increase technology and personnel dedicated to drug trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sorensen, who represents Illinois’ 17th District, is co-sponsoring the bill with Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer [OR-5] and Democrat Gabe Vasquez [NM-2].
“I have said from day one that we in Congress need to secure our southern border,” Sorensen said. “The flow of drugs like fentanyl — it’s hurting American families. …It is critical we do everything we can to stop the flow of fentanyl into our country.”
Sorensen traveled to the border in April as part of a bipartisan trip to hear from Customs and Border Patrol [CPB] agents about fentanyl trafficking.
“I heard directly from our border patrol officers in one-on-one settings,” he said. “I was able to talk with them and hear about their stresses — and quite frankly, the lack of tools being given to them to stop the drugs from coming across our ports of entry.”
According to Chavez-DeRemer, federal officials predict current methods curb just 5-10% of fentanyl smuggled across the southwest U.S.-Mexico border. Among the action items proposed in the bill are providing improved X-ray scanning technology to border patrol agents and hiring more workers dedicated to drug trafficking. The bill also increases penalties for traffickers caught smuggling the drug over the border, the vast majority of whom are U.S. citizens.
Vazquez said 70,000 opioid deaths have occurred nationwide since January. In McLean County, 14 people have died of opioid overdoses so far this year. Since tracking began in 2015, the gross number of opioid deaths peaked at 40 in 2017. The county had 32 such deaths in 2023, and 25 in 2022.
In a phone call, McLean County Coroner Kathleen Yoder confirmed an alarming trend in the growing percentage of opioid-related deaths involving fentanyl and a sharp increase in individuals seeking pure fentanyl.
"Oregon and Illinois are far away and removed from the southern border. We have to be in this together," Sorensen said. “I remain committed to making sure our law enforcement officers at the southern border have everything they need to do their jobs so we can make communities back home safer."
Overworked and underpaid
Vazquez said the bill has the added potential to cut down on illegal exportation of goods, currency and firearms — and may facilitate legal goods trading.
“At my port of entry, we were inspecting somewhere between 12-15% of all commercial cargo,” he said. “With this new non-intrusive inspection technology, not only does that get trucks faster through that port of entry, which speeds up trade with our largest international trade partner, it also scans the vehicles.”
The bill adds incentives and bonuses for what Chavez-DeRemer characterizes as an “overwhelmed, overworked and underpaid” workforce that, in some cases, has been diverted to addressing migrant border crossings.
“Our agents are being pulled away to do jobs they weren’t necessarily hired to do,” said Vazquez, whose district covers 180 miles of the southern border.
“We don’t want to take our direct border patrol who are trained in detection away from that,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “Only they can do that. They need our resources."
Political calculus?
The first-term Democrat Sorensen is running against Republican Joe McGraw, a Rockford judge who is leaning on border security and drug trafficking as key campaign issues.
But Sorensen said the fentanyl crisis is not a campaign issue.
“Screw the politics,” he said. “We have to do something here."
“We have to have the courage and the will to work this bill,” said Chavez-DeRemer, referring to the challenges of working in a divided Congress.
“This organized crime is directly hitting our families and communities," she said. "I’m willing to work with the congressmen. I don’t care about the election; I care about this.”
