The population of the United States of America, right now, is about 348 million. In the last six months, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), on the southwestern border of the United States alone, has confiscated enough fentanyl to kill nearly one-third of the total population of the USA.
As someone once said, that's a big freaking deal.
A record more than 100 million lethal doses of fentanyl have been seized at the southwest border in the past six months.
The seizures were made by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents working out of 54 ports of entry (POE) in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The seizures were made in the first six months of fiscal 2026, which began Oct. 1.
That is, perhaps, half of the southern border. It doesn't count other traffic coming across by water. It doesn't count seizures in other areas or by other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. This may well be just the tip of the iceberg.
The total excludes seizures made by Border Patrol agents and other federal agents as well as state and local law enforcement officers in the same period, from Oct. 1 through April 30.
If seizures were included from other agencies, the total would be significantly higher.
“As the nation’s border security agency, CBP is on the frontline against foreign terrorist organizations that threaten the safety and well-being of Americans,” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said. “CBP is uniquely positioned to detect, identify, and seize illicit drugs like fentanyl before they enter our communities.”
Fentanyl is, right now, the nuclear warhead of illegal drugs: This number alone could, conceivably, kill one-third of the population of the United States. If we had a total number seized from all sources, it may well be two or three times this number. And remember, we haven't stopped all of the illegal trafficking. No matter how much we clamp the border down, we are still talking about a 3,000-mile land border, and lots of ocean on either side. Some are going to get in; some are getting in. For evidence of that, just look at any of the urban homeless enclaves in the United States; just look at Los Angeles' infamous MacArthur Park. Those drugs aren't being made locally.
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That's not to downplay the valiant efforts of the CBP at these checkpoints, of course. They are doing great work, and we should appreciate that. They are saving lives by preventing this poison from coming through, and even when some slips past, the street price is probably higher than it would be otherwise; on the margins, that may prompt a few people, a few addicts, into seeking help.
While this is great news and certainly worth CBP's efforts, the solution to this problem lies in two areas: Clamping down on the cartels that are producing this stuff along with the Chinese interests that are selling them chemical precursors, and cleaning up the addicted people, many of them now living in trash-strewn homeless enclaves. If that means an involuntary committal to get these people cleaned up, then that should be done; this is a major public health and safety issue, and you need only drive by one of these encampments to see that for yourself.
Supply and demand. Until we cut them both off, the drugs will keep flowing.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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