Biden Instructs Federal Agencies to Boost Counter-Drug-Trafficking Efforts 👉 Updatem News

A new national security memo asks agencies to enhance information sharing and measures to block the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

President Joe Biden finalized a new national security memo on July 31 instructing federal departments and agencies to boost their efforts to disrupt the flow of illicit narcotics into the United States.

The president said the memo will also instruct federal agencies to boost their intelligence collection and information sharing to more effectively uncover drug trafficking efforts.

“It will enable our government to disrupt drug cartels—and their suppliers and financiers—more quickly and effectively,” Biden said in a Wednesday statement.

A senior administration official previewed the memo in an officially organized call with reporters on Tuesday. The official said this new memo will push federal departments and agencies to adjust to the evolving tactics of drug smuggling organizations.

“As the drug traffickers adapt and as a supply chain evolves, there’s a need to do even more to make sure that we have the best and most up-to-date common operating picture for all agencies and departments to work off of,” the senior administration official said, adding that Biden intends to pair his new national security memo with a renewed call for lawmakers to advance existing bipartisan legislative proposals to combat the illicit narcotics trade.

Heroin and fentanyl pressed into pill form. (Courtesy of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration)

One such legislative proposal the Biden administration is backing would establish a nationwide registry pill press and tableting registry, to enable law enforcement agencies to better track the number of machines operating and producing counterfeit pills.

The Biden administration is backing another legislative proposal to permanently label fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I narcotics under the Controlled Substance Act.

Another legislative proposal would require importers of small packaged items to provide more information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. The senior administration official said the Biden administration anticipates this proposal will enable U.S. border security officials to better detect and identify packages carrying illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals and related machinery.

The senior administration official said the Biden administration would back other measures to increase penalties for drug smugglers and traffickers, but provided few specifics about these new penalties ahead of the Wednesday policy announcements.

The Biden administration is also re-upping calls for Congress to pass more funding to hire additional border security and immigration officials and purchase new technology for detecting drug smuggling efforts. This funding component was part of a multifaceted supplemental spending proposal Biden submitted last fall that also included around $61 billion in new Ukraine-related spending, another $26 billion to sustain Israel’s military and to support humanitarian assistance efforts in the Gaza Strip, and additional funding for alliance-building in the Indo-Pacific region.

Lawmakers dropped the border funding component of Biden’s supplemental spending request in February after many Republican lawmakers argued the new funding measures didn’t do enough to address their concerns about border security. The Senate took another look at passing the border funding measures as a standalone bill in May, but that standalone version saw less support than the original proposal wrapped in the broader supplemental spending proposal.

Illegal immigrants line up to be transferred by U.S. Border Patrol after having crossed the Bravo River in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua State, Mexico, on April 18, 2024. (Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)

Many Republicans have argued that Biden hasn’t done enough throughout his presidency to prevent illegal border crossings and cross-border smuggling. In April, the Republican-controlled House Homeland Security Committee reported that border officials had recorded nearly 2 million known gotaways—instances in which border officials are aware of an illegal border crossing but are unable to stop it—under Biden’s tenure. The same House committee report stated there have been more than 9.5 million border encounters nationwide, including 7.8 million at the southern border alone, since Biden took office.

Biden signed an executive order in June authorizing the Department of Homeland Security to close the border and reject requests for asylum if the seven-day rolling average of border encounters exceeded 2,500 people a day. The border control executive order states DHS can resume processing people through the border 14 calendar days after the average number of daily encounters drops below 1,500 for seven consecutive days.

Last week, DHS reported they’ve logged a 55 percent drop in encounters at the U.S. southern border since June and that the U.S. Border Patrol’s rolling seven-day average of border encounters now sits at around 1,800 per day.

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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