Democrats in Arizona have demanded that Congress include funding to install and use high-tech vehicle scanners capable of detecting fentanyl in an area of the southern border that has become the epicenter of where federal customs officers intercept smugglers.
Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters on site in Nogales, Arizona, on Monday that available scanners for the ports of entry are sitting nearby, unused and ready to go if only Congress would provide the money to stand up the machines.
“Arizona has been flooded, flooded with cheap and deadly fentanyl in recent years with over half, half of the fentanyl seized in the United States in 2022 and 2023 being seized right here in Arizona,” Mayes said during a press conference in the border town. “The cartels are using our ports of entry and the border as their personal postal service to send fentanyl to the rest of the nation, and this is happening while high-tech scanning equipment that could help stop the flow of fentanyl is sitting unused in government warehouses.”
“It is sitting in government warehouses in our communities here on the border unused. Picture that,” she said. “It is insane.”
Both Gallego and Mayes called on Congress to include the necessary funding in a Department of Homeland Security budget bill that is being decided in Washington this week.
“In the coming weeks, Congress will reach a funding deadline that will have a direct impact on Arizona. We’re pushing at least for these funds to be released,” Gallego said.
Mayes pointed to fentanyl overdoses in the state affecting residents as young as 14 years old.
“We have Arizonans dying every day for no reason at all when we have scanners that can prevent this fentanyl from anteing,” Mayes said. “The nonintrusive technology is a game-changer for stopping fentanyl from flowing across the border.”
The DHS budget is in addition to several full-year funding bills for the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and State that lawmakers are working to get passed before the funding runs out later this week.
However, the DHS budget remains a sticking point. Republicans have demanded more funding for immigration detention and deportation, while Democrats have pushed for more money to go toward raising pay for Transportation Security Administration employees.
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“The thing that I am really annoyed by is that politicians that aren’t from border communities do not understand,” Gallego said. “So we’re going to use our votes when it comes to the budget to try to get this moving again.”
Federal customs officers who inspect vehicles and people seeking admission from Mexico through the Nogales border crossing’s commercial, passenger, and pedestrian lanes have prevented 25 million fentanyl pills from making it onto the streets of communities nationwide between October 2022 and April 2023, the Washington Examiner learned during a tour of the facility last April.