Democrats in Congress are facing backlash for their opposition to bipartisan legislation aimed at closing loopholes in U.S. drug laws taken advantage of by fentanyl traffickers.

The HALT Fentanyl Act, which would make the temporary Schedule I classification for fentanyl analogs permanent, has been opposed by a George Soros-backed drug policy nonprofit that claims the bill will exacerbate mass incarceration and limit research on these types of opioids. Democrats, such as Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, have pushed the same arguments while also seeking to impede the bill’s passage with various amendments and procedural maneuvers.

During comments Tuesday from the Senate floor, as he called for extending the temporary scheduling of fentanyl analogs, Booker claimed that the HALT Act will implement “harsher penalties for drugs” and that he would “not stop working until this body does more than just scheduling.” Other Democratic senators, including Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, have said the HALT Act will impede research on fentanyl analogs and exacerbate mass incarceration among minority communities.

Booker cited testimony Tuesday from parents who lost their children to fentanyl overdoses during his remarks, but the same grieving parents he pointed to are calling on Congress to quit stalling the move to permanently schedule fentanyl analogs as Schedule I substances.

“Continuing resolutions to accommodate the scheduling aspect of fentanyl analogs is simply a method of kicking the can further down the road,” Jaime Puerta, who lost his son, Daniel, in 2020 to a fentanyl overdose, wrote in a letter to Booker on Wednesday and obtained by Fox News Digital. “Fentanyl and its analogs have been the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States, with synthetic opioids accounting for over 74,000 fatalities in 2023 alone. Your reluctance to support the HALT Fentanyl Act disregards the escalating death toll and the devastating impact on families and communities nationwide.”

Another parent who lost their child to fentanyl in 2014, Lauri Badura, wrote in a separate letter to the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that if they cannot pass the HALT Act, “how can the public hold out hope Congress will fix the larger problem of illicit fentanyl crossing our borders every single day?” 

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