As President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency Friday, he called assertions that most drugs that cross the U.S.-Mexico border come in through legal points of entry and that a wall wouldn’t stop the flow of illegal drugs “all a lie.” However, statistics from Trump’s own government contradict Trump’s claim.
“We have tremendous amounts of drugs flowing into our country,” Trump said. “Much of it coming from the southern border, when you look and when you listen to politicians, particularly certain Democrats, they say ‘It all comes through the ports of entry.’ Wrong, it’s wrong. It’s just a lie. It’s all a lie. They say, ‘Walls don’t work.’ Walls work 100%.”
According to the DEA’s 2018 Drug Threat Assessment, the majority of drugs coming in illegally over the southern border are coming in through ports of entry.
“A small percentage of all heroin seized by [Customs and Border Protection agents] along the land border was between Ports of Entry,” the DEA reported.
“The majority of the [heroin] flow is through [private vehicles] entering the United States at legal ports of entry, followed by tractor-trailers, where the heroin is co-mingled with legal goods.”
Earlier this week, one of Mexico’s most infamous drug-lords, “El Chapo”, was convicted on drug-trafficking charges in New York City.
Prosecutors allege that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman made his fortune by creatively smuggling drugs at multiple legal points of entry using a wide range of transportation modes––including submarines, planes, tractor trailers and trains––that would not have been thwarted by a border wall.
According to prosecutors, El Chapo smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine across the U.S. Mexican border by hiding drugs in jalapeño pepper cans.
