Yes the cartels use us citizens to bring their product across the border. I'm not sure how that changes anything. It was not PG's point, his point was fentanyl (bears) do more damage to the US than illegal immigration (mosquitos), when in reality they both have a huge affect on our country, for obviously different reasons. Who are these US citizens?canpakes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 7:12 amTo PG’s point, if you remove all of the illegal immigrants from the border situation, you haven’t even rid yourself of a fifth of the drug importation problem.
Complete article with graphs:US Citizens Were 80 Percent of Crossers with Fentanyl at Ports of Entry from 2019 to 2024
By David J. Bier
Many people wrongly believe that immigration is critical to the illicit supply of fentanyl in the United States. However, proponents of this view have offered little more than speculation to support it. New data obtained by the Cato Institute via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request calls this belief into question. The new dataset shows that US citizens comprised 80 percent of individuals caught with fentanyl during border crossings at ports of entry from 2019 to 2024.
The FOIA dataset contains individual records regarding each person encountered by officials at US ports of entry from whom fentanyl was seized. Figure 1 shows the citizenship of individuals arrested with fentanyl from fiscal year (FY) 2019 to 2024, as of June. Overall, the dataset reveals that out of 7,569 individuals associated with a fentanyl seizure, 6,123 were US citizens, or 80.9 percent.
The data are most relevant to understanding fentanyl seizure activity because the vast majority of fentanyl is seized at ports of entry, not between the ports where people cross illegally. Figure 2 breaks down fentanyl seizures by location. From FY 2015 to 2024, 88 percent of all fentanyl was seized at ports of entry, basically the same as in FY 2024. Another 4 percent was seized at vehicle checkpoints on highways after the ports. Only 8 percent was seized by Border Patrol on patrol, and many of those seizures came from vehicle stops as well. The seizure data supports the qualitative assessments of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Office of National Drug Policy based on investigative work. Even Bill Barr, while serving as attorney general under President Donald Trump, agreed.
Drug trafficking organizations hire US citizens because they are guaranteed the right of entry into the United States and are subject to less scrutiny at ports than individuals without citizenship. Data from the US Sentencing Commission reinforces the impression that US citizens are the primary method for fentanyl cross-border drug trafficking. From 2018 to 2023, US citizens accounted for 2,315 of the 2,905 convicted drug traffickers in southwest border districts (80 percent). The number of US citizens involved in fentanyl trafficking has risen more rapidly than it has for other traffickers since 2018.
https://www.cato.org/blog/us-citizens-w ... une%202024.
Also your article does not address those just released, and not convicted. But lets use the 20% number. According to Goggle A.I., and a article it linked to..... from 2018-22 250 thousand people died from fentanyl alone, this does not count heroin, cocaine or other drugs that come over the border. 1/5th of 250K is 50K deaths, and this does not count the those effected that will struggle the rest of their lives, or the thousands of family's destroyed. There are all kinds of stats of overdose deaths from drugs coming over the border, study them and use your 20 percent straw-man.
By comparison around 58K US service personnel died in the Vietnam war in the 19 total years or so it went on. Under 5000 were killed in the Iraq war.
Are you good with these numbers?