In October, the Drug Enforcement Agency arrested 17 people for drug trafficking, money laundering and other criminal conspiracy charges. The group is accused of having distributed more than 800,000 fentanyl pills throughout the United States. The leader of the ring split his time between two key operational locations: Renton, Washington, and Atlanta.

Why Atlanta? Atlanta is the business and cultural capital of the Southeastern United States, and the primary transport hub for the region. This connectivity and prominence have helped the city’s economy, but they have also attracted the attention of transnational criminal and drug trafficking organizations. With a wide-open Southern border, Atlanta has become a prime target for illicit activity.

Tourism promotions proudly tout, “All roads lead to Atlanta,” and the ad fits; the city is accessible via Interstates 20, 75, 85, and Georgia 400. Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport offers 228 non-stop flight destinations, with the stunning ability to reach 80 percent of the United States within two hours. Transportation and warehousing account for a significantly larger portion, around 50 percent, of local gross domestic product compared to other major United States metropolitan centers.

Yet, the hallmarks of Atlanta’s success—the city’s highly efficient transportation industry and strategic location for domestic and international economic enterprise—prove enticing opportunities for illicit criminal organizations to exploit. 

Law enforcement officials have labeled Atlanta the Southeast “hub” for drug trafficking. Local, state, and federal law enforcement officials throughout the southeast and the nation have worked to dismantle transnational criminal networks. For example, Operation Dixie Crystal, operating since 2012, has worked throughout Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee, prosecuting more than 200 individuals, seizing over 20 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, over $500,000, and dozens of illegal firearms.

Drug trafficking organizations move large quantities of drugs from Central and South America into the United States, using Atlanta as a hub for funneling methamphetamine, opioids, fentanyl, and marijuana across the country. Drugs smuggled across the border and filtered through the city can reach 25 percent of America’s population within 7 hours through the highway system, on their way to destinations like Charlotte, Charleston, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Nashville, and Raleigh. 

The results are devastating. Opioid-related deaths are at record numbers in the United States, with over 107,000 fatalities in 2023. The vast majority of fatal drug overdoses result from synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine, favored by Mexican cartels as they bypass the production challenges of plant-based drugs. Congress has estimated that fentanyl alone kills over 200 Americans daily.

The Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels dominate the synthetic drug crisis, easily and cheaply producing the substances in Mexico before sending them to hub cities across the southern border. These organizations engage in global criminal activity, with profitable drug markets across the world and profitable arms trafficking, money laundering, and sex trafficking enterprises. 

While drug trafficking’s immediate origin is Mexico, the People’s Republic of China ultimately drives the influx of fentanyl to the United States. Congress’s Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party found that “companies in China produce nearly all of illicit fentanyl precursors.” 

The Chinese government subsidizes the manufacturing and exportation of such materials through tax rebates and other monetary rewards, holds ownership in several companies tied to drug trafficking, and strategically and economically benefits from the crisis. China supplies the fentanyl precursors to the Mexican cartels, who manufacture the finished product, send the drugs across border checkpoints, transport the materials to hub cities, and from there ship the substances to their final consumers– American citizens.

With the Biden-Harris administration’s suspension of the previous administration’s border security framework, transnational crime organizations are emboldened to push more drugs across the southern border and throughout the United States, killing people and crippling communities. But this crisis is far from inevitable.

The United States needs to empower its law enforcement agencies and bolster its border security strategy, first and foremost by closing the open border. The Senate should pass the Secure the Border Act (H.R. 2), which amongst other increased security measures against illegal immigration, expands Border Patrol resources. Strong financial support and focused allocation of funding will allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection to more effectively pursue its mission to keep America safe from drug smuggling and illegal importation.

The federal government must hold China accountable for its complicity in the fentanyl crisis. Congress should work to limit Chinese pharmaceutical imports to reduce vulnerability on corrupted supply chains while demanding transparency for necessary imports, where appropriate. Additionally, legislators should enhance screening for shipments with potentially hazardous contents.  

Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris administration has funneled billions of dollars into non-governmental organizations that support migration and often exacerbate crime networks. This money should be reallocated to support local, state, and federal law enforcement teams and legitimate government agencies, empowering them to more fully combat the public safety and national security threats posed by criminal networks.

While criminal organizations and adversaries abroad would seek to exploit Atlanta’s strategic location and weaken American stability and communities through networks of illegal activity, the United States can employ effective positive steps to combat crime. The first step is to reverse this administration’s disastrous policies facilitating a dangerously open border.