(The Center Square) – Although President Donald Trump and his administration have cracked down on illegal crossings along the southern border, another problem persists, according to a new report from Restoration News: drug trafficking.
The administration is beefing up border security and deporting illegal immigrants wanted for crimes. As result, illegal border crossings have plummeted, The Center Square reported. However, drug smuggling at legal points of entry keeps happening.
Notably, the report found that only 15% to 17% of commercial vehicles and 1% to 2% of private vehicles entering the United States from Mexico at legal points of entry are inspected for illegal drug smuggling. Most vehicles enter the country largely unchecked, even though almost 48,000 pounds of fentanyl – or 2.5 billion lethal doses – have been seized at legal points of entry since 2023. About 90% of border drug seizures happen at legal points of entry, the report said.
“Most of these drugs aren’t smuggled across the emptiest parts of the 2,000-mile Mexican border, but through the 26 land ports of entry connecting the two nations – yet very few Americans realize how vulnerable the border is even after locking it down in January,” Hayden Ludwig, executive director of Research at Restoration of America, said. “Border counties are inundated with smugglers stashing meth, fentanyl, cocaine, and other narcotics in their vehicles.
“This creates a sort of loss-leader model,” he added. “Just like grocery stores that factor in the cost of a certain level of shoplifting, cartels know they can still make massive profits even as part of their shipment is lost to drug enforcement agents and Border Patrol.”
Additionally, the report noted that most (82%) of these drug smugglers are American citizens, not foreigners. Their average age is 38, and nearly half (43%) have no previous criminal history; only 6% are career criminals.
The United States had 108,000 drug overdose deaths in 2023, an all-time high; most (70%) of those deaths were due, at least in part, to opioids, including fentanyl.
The uptick in drug deaths in the country has also been dangerous for children; calls to poison centers for child exposure and ingestion of fentanyl are up 54% since 2016, the report said.
The Trump administration is working on mitigating the problem.
The administration has designated drug cartels as terrorist groups and used the military to train Mexican forces. Trump has also pushed for the death penalty for drug traffickers.
Additionally, Trump cited fentanyl trafficking as his initial reasoning for putting tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.
The Restoration News report even floated using lethal force to stop drug traffickers and to save American lives.
“If military action seems extreme, consider that today’s cartels are toting weaponized drones, gatling miniguns, land mines, and even U.S. military Javelin anti-tank and helicopter missile launchers instead of the pistols and Uzis of yore,” it said.
“Given their investment, the cartels won’t give up its multi-billion-dollar U.S. market without a fight,” it added. “A military foray into Mexico could quickly come to resemble fighting the Taliban, with IEDs, car bombs, and hand grenades lobbed at American soldiers from guerrilla fighters and child-soldiers funded by some of the wealthiest criminal organizations in history. But the U.S. may have little choice but to intervene.”
