The border crisis isn’t stopping at the border, according to Blaine County Sheriff Travis Daughtery.
“Every county, city and small town has a border crisis problem,” he said Tuesday.
The migrants may come here for the right reasons, to find a better life for themselves and their families. “However, they are often controlled by the cost, the debt they incurred to get here,” Daughtery noted. “That debt might never end for them, for their daughters, for whoever has to pay that debt.”
Others, he said, come here with bad intentions to start with. “There are plenty who come here who don’t care for Americans to start with and they are just out for money, period.”
The drug cartels use both groups to transport contraband. The migrants may trade their debt to work in sex rings, transporting money or narcotics, or other migrants.
The belief in many smaller towns may be that the illegals just keep going, but that isn’t always the case. Daughtery said they go wherever their coyote – who got them across the border – tells them to go. And the overwhelmed system at the border sends them on to that location.
Sometimes, those locations are small towns where they set up shop to sell the drugs or other contraband the cartels send later. And unless those people are flagged by immigration officials, they can fly under the radar for a long time, or until they are arrested for a crime committed here.
And even if the individual is flagged, their removal isn’t assured. For instance, one detainee was in Blaine County Jail for two whole years before federal authorities came to pick him up. That’s 730 days at a cost to the county of $40 per day, minimum. The total is at least $29,000.
And that’s if the inmate is in decent physical health. If he or she needs medical care, that is also at the cost of the county. And many of the migrants need medical care.
Daughtery said there are cases where the migrant has been investigated for molestation or sexual battery, sink resources into the case, only to have the family decide not to pursue the matter and the migrant be released because the family needs the money he brings in to put food on the table.
Blaine County, the sheriff said, has been relatively lucky thus far because there have only been six fentanyl overdoses and no deaths here.
But it is growing in popularity and usage because the high is more extreme than other substances and it is cheaper than heroin. Drug dealers may lace their product with the synthetic opioid because it is then more addictive or preferred over drugs not laced with fentanyl.
The sheriff said there is something residents can do, though. For instance, if someone notices a new occupant of a home or location where there is heavy traffic, especially on particular days, they should report it. Other clues are out of state tags on multiple vehicles and a revolving door of residents at the location, or a steady stream of cars and foot traffic that only stay at the location for 10 or 15 minutes, that should be a clue that drug sales are taking place and the activity should be reported to law enforcement.