Shortages in staffing at U.S. ports of entry are harming efforts to seize synthetic opioids, said a Senate Homeland Security committee report, The Hill reported.
Sen. Claire McCaskill issued the report from the minority staff on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “The investigation found that CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) officers at ports of entry (port officers) play a key role in stopping opioids and that CBP has significant shortages of port officers that may be compromising efforts to seize additional opioids before they can reach U.S. communities,” the report said.
The report said that the CBP is about 4,000 port officers short of its staffing needs.
Port officers, who man airports, seaports, border crossings, and international mail facilities, helped the CBP, in 2017, seized 1,370 pounds of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid about 50 times more powerful than heroin, the report said.
That amount was more than double the amount of fentanyl that CBP seized in 2016, with 85 percent of that amount being taken from points of entry, the report said.
McCaskill, the top Democrat on the committee, released the report to put a spotlight on efforts to combat the opioid epidemic, which estimates say results in 115 overdose deaths each day, The Hill reported.
“There is no silver bullet to solving this influx of opioids, but at the very least we need to ensure that our ports are adequately staffed and equipped to deal with this problem—and right now that’s simply not the case,” McCaskill said in a statement.
The senator introduced a bill in January to authorize the CBP to hire at least 500 port officers each year until the staff needs are filled.
In April, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., also weighed in on the opioid epidemic, calling on Congress to spend $100 billion to fight against it.
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