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Herrera Beutler Invites President Biden to Meet with Drug Task Force to Understand Impacts of Border Crisis on Addiction, Overdoses in Southwest Washington

Washington, April 19, 2022

Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler wrote a letter to President Joe Biden suggesting he meet with a narcotics-focused law enforcement team in Southwest Washington to gain a deeper understanding of how Americans have been impacted by policies at the border.

The full text of the letter follows, and a PDF is available here.

Dear President Biden,

Through media reports, I have learned that you will be visiting the Pacific Northwest later this week. Infrastructure and rising costs are important priorities and I’m pleased that you will be discussing them while here, but a more immediate physical threat to residents in every single community throughout this region is the overdose epidemic that has been fed by the border crisis. That’s why I invite you to meet with one of the narcotics-focused law enforcement teams here in Southwest Washington to gain a deeper understanding of how Americans have been impacted by what’s happening at our borders. 

For instance, your Drug Enforcement Administration has detailed how drug cartels are smuggling deadly fentanyl and other illicit poisons through the southern border and up the I-5 corridor into the Pacific Northwest. The Lewis County Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team shared with me in a recent meeting that 95% of the drugs it has confiscated have originated from Mexico.  

I am certain that a 30-minute meeting with one of these narcotics task forces would be an illuminating experience for you, and may well inform a change in your administration’s policies at our borders.