With the national media and the Biden administration focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, many may be surprised to know that an even bigger killer is loose in the United States.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number one killer of Americans aged 18 to 45 is fentanyl overdoses, surpassing COVID, car accidents, and even suicides. Data shows that 37,208 died in 2020 and 41,587 died in 2021. COVID-19, meanwhile, killed about 19,000 less in the demographic over the same time period.

The synthetic opioid, 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, is used to treat patients with severe pain or to manage pain after surgery.

Data from Families Against Fentanyl, an opioid awareness organization, suggests that one person dies from an overdose every 8.5 minutes. James Rauh, the founder of the group, said it’s like we are loading an airplane full of college kids and crashing it every day.

Rauh said the opioid started out as a white man’s drug because it was affecting the heroin market, but today it’s affecting all classes and all races. The black community is being especially hard hit.

“This is a national emergency. America’s young adults - thousands of unsuspecting Americans - are being poisoned,” Rauh, said. “A new approach to this catastrophe is needed.”

Rauh’s organization wants lawmakers to designate the drug as a “weapon of mass destruction.”

On the front lines of the fight against illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling, governors from Texas, Arizona and Florida are sounding off. Federal legislation was prepared by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s office aimed at bolstering security all along the U.S.-Mexico border, which is seeing a record number of migrant encounters and fentanyl seizures. In a two-month span late last year, border agents in the Yuma, Arizona, sector apprehended more than 44,500 illegal migrants, a 2,400 percent increase over the same two-month period the previous year.

“In Arizona, we will secure our border. We will protect public safety. We will not back down,” Ducey said at the meeting with the lawmen. “We will fight this fight until Washington, D.C., finally acts.”

Last week, 11 Arizona county sheriffs urged their state’s congressional delegation to fight increased illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling by hiring more immigration judges and resuming border wall construction.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also holds Joe Biden and his administration to blame for failing to do its job as required by the Constitution and as required by laws passed by Congress to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. In one recent bust alone, the Texas Department of Public Safety said its officers seized enough of the drug to equal more than 36 million lethal doses.

“Enough fentanyl (has been found) to kill every man, woman and child in Texas, California, New York, Illinois and Florida combined,” Abbott said, pointing to the worsening crisis. “Joe Biden has facilitated the death of those people by the open border policies that he has allowed to take place here in Texas.”

In his State of the State Address last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also blamed the Biden administration’s lawless open border policies for the staggering numbers of illegal migration and the massive influx of narcotics like fentanyl.

“Rather than defend our sovereignty and enforce the border, the federal government has released hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to communities across the U.S., shipping them to Florida at alarming rates, including by sending clandestine flights in the dark of night,” DeSantis said.

“As a state, we cannot be a party to what is effectively a massive human smuggling operation run by the federal government. Companies who are facilitating the movement of illegal aliens from the southern border to Florida should be held accountable, including by paying restitution to the state for all the costs they are imposing on our communities. I am also requesting funds so that when the feds dump illegal aliens in Florida, the state can reroute them to states that have sanctuary policies.”

Gov. Brad Little of Idaho agrees, stating that there is a direct tie to the loose border with Mexico. In helping state troopers stay ahead of the drug trafficking in his state, Little sent Idaho State Police Troopers to the Arizona-Mexico border to give them a better understanding of how fentanyl is moved.

With the threat now nationwide, all communities should be concerned, not only those on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Already mired in dismal poll numbers, the Biden administration can expect an even deeper plunge as long as they keep holding the door open for illegal smugglers and drug traffickers on the southern border.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.