Greg Abbott Campaign Blames Open Borders for Rise in Fentanyl Deaths

At a campaign event for Democrat Beto O'Rourke, members of Texas Governor Greg Abbott's reelection campaign handed out empty pill bottles with a fake label attached that blamed President Joe Biden's "open border" policies for a rise in fentanyl deaths in the state.

The bottles, which also had O'Rourke's name on them, contained a piece of paper with statistics about fentanyl and the number of Americans that die from overdoses, according to Madlin Mekelburg of the Austin American-Statesman, who tweeted photos of the bottles at the Wednesday night event.

The top of the label reads: "Beto Biden Open Border Crisis," with the fake "prescription" being issued to O'Rourke, with a figure for fentanyl deaths in 2021 printed below. A warning across the bottom of the label claims that "open border policies" have increased the amount of fentanyl that is crossing into the United States.

Members of Abbott's campaign staff were reportedly distributing the bottles to the crowd at O'Rourke's event before they were escorted out, Mekelburg reported.

A piece of paper was inside the bottle containing a quote from National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd that said the Border Patrol is "lucky if we seize 5 percent of fentanyl pills coming across border."

The paper also lists 1,334 fentanyl deaths in Texas reported for 2021, as well as information about the lethality of fentanyl, the amount it takes for a dose to be lethal and a "factoid" that said over 150 people die every day due to overdoses from "synthetic opioids like fentanyl."

"Texas has been the LEAST insured state every year under Abbott," O'Rourke tweeted in an apparent response to the campaign tactic Thursday morning.

"What if instead of having a governor who spends time handing out prop prescription bottles, we had a governor who expands Medicaid so more Texans can finally see a doctor and afford their lifesaving prescriptions," O'Rourke wrote.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported an increase of over 1,000 percent in the amount of fentanyl seized at the southern border of Texas for the fiscal year of 2021, according to The Houston Chronicle.

When O'Rourke's campaign was reached for comment, representatives referred Newsweek to O'Rourke's Thursday tweet and said it "stands for itself," adding that any fentanyl deaths that have happened in the last eight years have taken place under Abbott's watch.

"Because of the Beto-Biden open border policies, fentanyl is flooding into Texas and turning our southern border into a distribution center of death," Abbott's Communications Director Mark Miner said in a statement to Newsweek. "Instead of taking steps to secure the border and stem the tide of fentanyl, President Biden and Beto O'Rourke have pushed dangerous open-border policies that have led to an increase of death and destruction in communities throughout Texas."

Earlier Thursday Newsweek reported on O'Rourke's current "Keeping the Lights On" series of campaign events dedicated to those who died in the 2021 winter storm that shut down portions of Texas' power grid. The bottles were distributed at one of those events in Austin Wednesday night.

Update 02/10/22, 6:25 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional context, along with a statement from Governor Abbott's office and a brief comment from O'Rourke's campaign.