Border Security Bill Aims to Curtail Drug Smuggling at Ports of Entry

The border security funding package signed into law by President Donald Trump on Friday will provide Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with more technology to stop the smuggling of illegal drugs through ports of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Most of the drugs smuggled into the U.S. pass through a legal port of entry and shipments of heroin and other opioids (such as fentanyl) are particularly problematic. For example, in January 2019, CBP captured a record 254 pound shipment of fentanyl that was in a hidden compartment of a tractor trailer entering the U.S. from Mexico at a port of entry in Arizona.

The border security funding package provides $564 million to install more non-intrusive imaging equipment in the inbound lanes of southwest border land ports of entry, thus allowing CBP to significantly increase the percentage of cars and commercial cargo scanned

Why does it matter?

According to figures from our partners at USAFacts, a non-partisan civic data initiative, drug overdose deaths have been rapidly rising in recent years.

Fentanyl caused the most overdose deaths ― 28,466 ― of any drug, opioid or non-opioid, in 2017.

— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection via Flickr / Public Domain)