Larry the Legend wrote:
How can anyone possibly know that? If the border patrol knew drugs were being smuggled and how much, why would they not intervene to apprehend the perpetrators? That statement is indefensible. Show me the source and I might be persuaded, but there are no credible numbers because drug smugglers don't send in a report detailing their activities.
Follow the link, I took a few parts to post, but more in the article may interest you..
https://www.usatoday.com/news/n their ongoing push for $5.7 billion to expand the border wall, Trump administration officials have repeatedly pointed to the flow of drugs across the southern border as proof that such a wall is needed.
President Donald Trump has used that line. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has, too.
But an analysis of data from the southern border indicates that the vast majority of narcotics enters through U.S. ports of entry, not the wide swaths of border in between where additional barriers could be erected.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, 90 percent of heroin seized along the border, 88 percent of cocaine, 87 percent of methamphetamine, and 80 percent of fentanyl in the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year was caught trying to be smuggled in at legal crossing points.
While those numbers deal only with drugs that are caught, border experts say the data accurately reflect the way drug cartels successfully smuggle narcotics into the country.
Democrats have rejected Trump's request, instead preferring to invest more heavily in ports of entry. The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed a spending bill Jan. 3 that includes $8 million to hire 328 new Customs officers and $225 million to purchase equipment used to screen trucks and vehicles for contraband.
In December, Border Patrol agents arrested two men after an ultralight aircraft flew over the border wall in California and dropped $1.4 million worth of methamphetamine and a getaway bicycle. And last year, a man was sentenced to 12 years in prison after he was caught picking up a package with 13 pounds of methamphetamine that had been dropped by a drone that flew over the border wall near San Diego. Border Patrol officials say such airborne smuggling attempts are only expected to increase as drone technology improves.