Congressman Garcia said something meaningful during our interview — that most illegal fentanyl coming into the US is not from illegal immigrants but from U.S. citizens crossing the border legally. So, I dug into it.
I have been conflating the two problems because 1. many politicians on the Republican side tend to do so, and 2. the media doesn’t work very hard to draw a distinction.
But the numbers don’t lie. The CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank (aka not bound to either party and lean conservative at that), produced three poignant stats. In 2021, U.S. citizens were 86.3% of the convicted fentanyl drug traffickers. Over 90% of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints (not illegal migration routes). And only .02% (!!!) of people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl.