What do you get when you open the border but close the country?

One thing we know: We got a 15 percent spike in overdoses in 2021, with a record 117,622 people losing their lives. The tragic numbers were released Wednesday by the CDC in a “Vital Statistics Rapid Release” report.

Our open border -and the fentanyl pouring across it – is killing Americans in record numbers. Biden doesn’t care.

They only care what the radical immigration groups think, not you. https://t.co/J0yaYnnPFm

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 11, 2022

We may never know exactly how much the border crisis and pandemic lockdowns contributed to the problem, but we don’t need to be Einsteins to make the correlation.

One sign that points in the pandemic direction: Overdose deaths among teens doubled in the past three years, even though overall drug use decreased among the group. What were many teens doing during the height of the pandemic? Lying on their couches because they were barred from going to school. Getting depressed and getting high. Said NBC:

“Our data make it clear that young people experienced significant disruption and adversity during the pandemic and are experiencing a mental health crisis,” Ethier (director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health) said.

More from NBC:

The data helps illustrate one of the consequences of the pandemic, which has seen an uptick in substance abuse amid widespread unemployment and more Americans reporting mental health issues.

The scourge of fentanyl is another driving force behind the overdose epidemic. The Guardian reports:

Researchers attribute this to a flood of counterfeit pills, which look exactly like real oxycodone or Xanax tablets, but actually contain fentanyl, a synthetic opioid so potent that one counterfeit pill can prove fatal. Vast quantities of these fake pills are being smuggled into the country and are circulating in the illicit drug market, meaning that teens often ingest the deadly drug unknowingly.

Fentanyl was the deadliest of drugs, killing 71,238, but meth was an efficient killer too, striking down 32,856. Cocaine caused 24,538 deaths, and prescription pain meds 13,503.

The hardest-hit state was Alaska, where deaths were up an eye-popping 75 percent. As I reported last month, homeless deaths in Los Angeles also spiked 26 percent, mostly due to drugs.

Where does fentanyl come from, and how does it get here? The DEA doesn’t mince words, stating flatly on its website that “Clandestinely-produced fentanyl is primarily manufactured in Mexico.” Gee, wish there was something the Biden Administration could do about that. Wait, we could police our borders!  Oh never mind, that would be racist and cruel. Better to just let our own people die.

More than 100,000 Americans died from drugs last year–and most from fentanyl.

But the Biden Administration is trying to REDUCE the penalty for trafficking fentanyl by dropping the mandatory minimums.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) May 11, 2022

If you have teens or know any, you’ve probably heard them tell you about at least one contemporary they know or know of who has overdosed. Drugs have long been a problem in America, but it’s criminal to leave our borders open for the fentanyl to literally pour across, and it was shameful to lock down our kids and force them into such isolation with Draconian COVID policies. The results are in.

It’s a tragedy, and while we’re giving billions to Ukraine and the equity agenda, you rarely hear a peep from Joe about this epidemic. It’s time this regime acknowledged the severity of this problem and prioritize it before we lose another 100,000 next year.