A new report out this month shows the vast majority of fentanyl smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border is done so by U.S. citizens.
Politicians have long tied migrants and asylum seekers to fentanyl deaths and drug smuggling in the U.S. — even though law enforcement agencies have long asserted that the majority of the hard drugs are seized at ports of entry, rather than between them.
Report author David Beir, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, says conviction data of drug trafficking cases shows the majority of that smuggling is done by U.S. citizens, and his new report confirms it.
“We have known for some time now that over 80% of the people being convicted of fentanyl trafficking were U.S. citizens,” he said. “Now we have this additional data set from the agency doing the seizures directly.”
The report uses data from drug seizures carried out by Customs and Border Protection at ports of entry between 2019 and 2024. It shows that the number of seizures at ports of entry went up, even amid pandemic-era border policies like Title 42 and non-essential travel bans restricted asylum and travel.
“The incentives to traffic fentanyl in particular changed dramatically in 2020 when the borders were, you know, ‘closed,’ and you had this big restriction, in people's ability to enter the United States legally from Mexico,” he said. “With far fewer people crossing the border, far fewer trucks, it became much harder to move heroin and other drugs that are less potent than fentanyl. And so the traffickers switched from smuggling heroin to smuggling fentanyl.”
Beir says data he obtained for the report shows the number of people apprehended between ports of entry by the Border Patrol carrying fentanyl was “pretty close to zero,” roughly 1 in 12,000 arrestees.
“And the simple economic explanation for that, of course, is that you're more likely to be caught crossing the border illegally than you are to be caught carrying drugs through a legal port of entry … with authorization to enter the United States,” he said. That really demonstrates that the answer here is ultimately not about more seizures or restricting immigration or entry to the United States. But about addressing the demand — we're paying for these drugs to come in.”
Beir says to address the fentanyl crisis, more money should go toward treatment programs and policy.
