Biden Admin Expands Border Inspections Tech to Curb Fentanyl Trafficking – By Daniel Bush (Newsweek) / June 27, 2023
The Biden administration is moving forward with a plan to expand the use of high-tech inspection systems at the Southern border in an effort to reduce the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the country, Newsweek has learned.
President Biden’s drug czar Rahul Gupta will travel to the border Thursday to tout the expansion of a scanning system at border checkpoints that allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to more efficiently inspect vehicles for narcotics and other contraband.
Congress approved funding for the technology, known as large-scale non-intrusive inspection systems in 2019, but the program has been slow to get off the ground since then. The Biden administration’s push to add more of the inspection systems now is the latest attempt to address a deadly opioid crisis that kills tens of thousands of people in the United States each year.
“The goal is to make sure that every vehicle, regardless of [whether it’s] cargo or passenger, that needs to get scanned, gets scanned,” Gupta, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, told Newsweek in an interview.
