Sen. Tester asks Congress to fund installation of border fentanyl scanners that now sit idle
As fentanyl scanning equipment intended for the border sits unused, Montana Sen. Jon Tester is blaming Republicans and asking Congress to approve funds for installation.
As millions of dollars in fentanyl scanning equipment intended for the southern border sits unused, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., is blaming Republicans and asking congressional appropriators to approve the money needed to install the machines in this year’s homeland security funding bill.
Tester says Republicans who killed the bipartisan border security bill this year should now support funding to install the machines. “Many of these scanners are currently sitting in warehouses unused,” Tester said Friday in a letter to the House and Senate appropriations committees, “because Senator Mitch McConnell and politicians in Washington blocked bipartisan border security legislation that would have appropriated funds to install them.”
Customs and Border Protection says the majority of the fentanyl it seizes at the border comes into the U.S. through personal vehicles at legal ports of entry.
But in an interview this week, acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller told NBC News that large scanners used to detect hidden packages in cars crossing the border that could contain fentanyl are sitting idle because the agency lacks the funding from Congress to install them.
Tester says funding for installation is essential: “These scanners allow Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to scan vehicles and cargo in order to detect fentanyl and other dangerous contraband that criminals are trying to smuggle into our country.”
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