Lauri Badura lost her son Archie to an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2014. Back then, she had no idea what the synthetic opioid was.
Now, the Oconomowoc activist who has committed her life to fighting the scourge of the deadly drug knows better than any that “fentanyl is America’s new ‘F’ word.’” And she’s terrified by the potential flood of fentanyl pouring into the United States with the end of Title 42.
“I’m in shock with what our nation is facing,” Badura said Thursday in an interview with The Wisconsin Daily Star.”I can’t imagine what we’re doing and what we’re saying to the world, ‘Our borders are open, come on in!’ It makes no sense.”
“We know the fentanyl is coming in and we know the drug cartels are using these poor immigrants.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it has seen the highest daily totals ever recorded this week in anticipation of the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era law used to check the spread of COVID-19 by drastically limiting illegal immigrants from seeking asylum in the U.S. under Title 42, federal Border Patrol agents have been able to expel illegals more quickly. As President Joe Biden declares an end to the pandemic, the immigration block under the health emergency was set to end Thursday night.
More than 107,000 people in the United States died of drug overdoses between September 2021 and August 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vast majority of those fatalities involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
In 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported it seized more than 50.6 million fentanyl-laced, fake prescription pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder.
“The DEA Laboratory estimates that these seizures represent more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl,” the agency noted in a press release.
A lot more has slipped through. And things may get a lot worse as more than 10,000 illegal immigrants a day — some of them serving the drug cartels — attempt to cross the U.S. border.
“In Iowa, what we have experienced, because of this border crisis, is a spike in fentanyl overdose deaths from Iowans under 25, a spike up to 120%.,” U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), said in a statement Thursday. “These are Iowans who are losing their lives because of this border crisis and an uncontrolled border.”
Ernst has introduced legislation that would require the federal government to turn over materials already purchased to build a southern wall to states to complete the job. One of Biden’s first acts as president was to end the construction of border wall.
House Republicans on Thursday passed a bill that would finish the wall and significantly restrict asylum seekers from entering the U.S.
The Democrat-controlled Senate has signaled the bill is dead on arrival. Biden has threatened to veto it. The Biden administration has said it will release some illegal immigrants into the country without having a way to track them, only exacerbating the fentanyl crisis, critics say.
Badura has seen so much loss since her 19-year-old son took a pill laced with fentanyl and died in his sleep on May 15, 2014. Too many deaths, too much heartbreak.
She and her family launched Saving Others for Archie (SOFA) to reach as many people as possible, to save as many families as they can from getting the call she got eight years ago. SOFA is behind a public awareness campaign, with billboards across Wisconsin, Indiana, even in New York’s Times Square. The billboards’ slogan: “America’s New ‘F’ Word” with the faces of just some of the drug’s victims.
There is hope. Badura’s Waukesha County has declared war on illicit fentanyl. Last August, Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow declared fentanyl a community health crisis, devoting county resources and attention to the scourge. A coalition of county officials and volunteers has worked to save lives, reversing nearly 50 overdoses in 2022.
Farrow will serve as MC of this weekend’s Ninth Annual Jump for Archie, Jump for Life, a powerful public awareness event at City Beach in Oconomowoc. First responders, government leaders, family members of the lost, and those in recovery will jump off the pier into the lake. As they do, they’ll raise their hands to heaven, calling out the names of the people — some lost, some saved — that they are jumping for. At the conclusion of the event, attendees will gather around a banner with the names of the lives claimed by fentanyl overdoses in Wisconsin, reading the names aloud and sharing stories of hope.
“It gives me goosebumps every time,” Badura said.
Deaths from synthetic opioid drug overdoses declined slightly in the last year compared to the 110,000 fatalities in 2021. It appeared local, state and national efforts were making a difference, with hope that the deadly numbers would continue to fall this year.
Badura said the border crisis is taking air out of that hope.
“I’m scared, very fearful,” she said. “If we have 300 (drug overdose) deaths a day, what are we going to have [after the end of Title 42]?”
“It’s going to be a flood like we have never seen. We have to brace ourselves.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Lauri Badura” by SOFA INC. – Saving Others For Archie.
