Link between immigration and fentanyl deaths is weak

The Trump campaign may actually believe that they care about the people dying from fentanyl poisoning. Former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance discuss the issue at almost every campaign rally. But they can’t stop tying the crisis to immigration, and let’s face it, if you’re going to blame immigrants for fentanyl deaths, you don’t really care about saving anyone. Immigrants aren’t causing these deaths.

New research from the Cato Institute, using data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, dismantles the alleged connection between immigration and fentanyl smuggling. The dataset shows that from 2019 to 2024, 80% of the people caught with fentanyl at border crossings were U.S. citizens — 7,598 of the 9,473 cross-border smugglers.

Focusing on seizures at ports of entry is critical because 88% of all fentanyl was seized at ports of entry from FY 2015 to 2024. Only 8% was seized by Border Patrol, primarily during vehicle stops. These numbers are consistent with studies by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Office of National Drug Policy, which show that drug smugglers are primarily using ports of entry rather than illicit crossing routes.

Drug trafficking organizations favor U.S. citizens for smuggling because they have the legal right to enter the United States and are less likely to be questioned by officials at ports of entry if they attempt to do so. Data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission supports this: from 2018 to 2023, U.S. citizens made up 80% of convicted drug traffickers in the southwest border districts.

Because of the high probability of detection during illegal border crossings, smugglers prefer legal border crossings. CBP estimates that it intercepted only 2.98% of cocaine at border crossings, compared to more than 75% of immigrants who crossed illegally. Even if CBP overestimates its effectiveness in stopping illegal border crossings, it still wouldn’t make sense to smuggle drugs that way.

Critics might argue that we can’t see the drugs coming through. That’s true, but Border Patrol apprehensions provide a substantial sample size for drawing reasonable conclusions about this flow. Between October 2018 and June 2024, Border Patrol made 8.5 million arrests and 1,341 fentanyl seizures. It’s likely that half of those were U.S. citizens stopped in vehicle stops.

Fentanyl trafficking among illegal immigrants crossing the border is rare, occurring in less than 1 in 12,000 encounters. While it’s not that it never happens, even if we invested billions to stop it, it wouldn’t solve the real problem we’re trying to solve: fentanyl-related deaths. Cartels can simply increase their supply through other available channels.

Eliminating immigration won’t solve the fentanyl crisis, as overdose deaths rose during years of restricted immigration. In 2020, when immigration was drastically reduced, fentanyl overdose deaths rose 56%, and another 22% in fiscal year 2021 under continued restrictions. In 2020, cartels switched from heroin to fentanyl, which is 50 times more potent, allowing them to meet demand with fewer crossings.

As a recent study by University of Cincinnati professor Ben Feldmeyer reported in the journal Criminology found, more immigration is more often associated with fewer drug overdoses. This is partly because immigrants are more likely to abstain from drug use. As a result, noncitizens account for about 1.4% of overdoses, even though they make up more than 7% of the U.S. population. It may also be because immigration improves the economy in those areas.

Improved detection technology at ports isn’t the answer either. Marijuana has been smuggled for decades, despite being easier to detect. Seizing more won’t affect the availability of fentanyl unless cartels fail to supply more to replace it, which history shows they don’t. For example, even as marijuana seizures increased as Border Patrol expanded, its availability remained the same and its potency increased.

In addition, stronger synthetic opioids such as Nitazenes are already emerging in the U.S. that could replace fentanyl, reducing the number of smuggling trips and causing even more deaths. In the unlikely event that Mexico’s smuggling routes were to be shut down, smugglers would simply use other methods, such as mailing packages or domestic production. Where there’s demand, there’s supply.

The marijuana experience proves that the only way to stop trafficking is to stop the demand for the cartel’s product. Of course, no one is going to legalize fentanyl for nonmedical use. But there are plenty of effective solutions that fall short of that: legalize fentanyl test strips so consumers can choose not to use it, eliminate restrictions on alternative legal options like methadone treatment, allow doctors to treat pain and addiction without legal risk, and reschedule diamorphine for treatment purposes. Effective drug policies in other countries have produced better results, and none of them relied on immigration restrictions to get there.

The obsession with immigration as a solution to the fentanyl problem distracts from tangible solutions. Politicians’ focus on immigration gives cartels even more power to flood the market with fentanyl, resulting in thousands of American deaths. It’s time to stop the distraction and implement policies that reduce demand and save lives.

If you really care about the dead and dying, you’ll stop blaming immigrants and start holding political demagogues accountable.