Smuggling Fentanyl: Trump’s Dangerous Lie About Migrants

One false narrative has resonated beyond its base — that is, among families who have lost loved ones to the opioid crisis, a growing share of Americans. Not only has Trump repeatedly made exaggerated claims about fentanyl deaths in the United States, the former president has blamed migrants for the crisis, often linking illegal immigration to the fentanyl trade in public speeches and rallies.

A new investigation from The New York Times debunks this idea once and for all. Drug cartels rely on American mules to smuggle fentanyl from Mexico into the United States. As federal data shows, the vast majority — more than 80 percent — of people caught with fentanyl at the southern border between 2019 and 2024 were U.S. citizens — not unauthorized immigrants or asylum seekers.

Trump and the Republicans have perfected the art of never letting the truth get in the way of a good story, as Mark Twain once said. And the fentanyl crisis is a clear example of this.

To correct the story, Trump likes to say that 300,000 people die every year from fentanyl smuggled by migrants illegally entering the United States through the southern border. The actual numbers of fentanyl overdoses are lower, but still breathtaking. Last year, nearly 75,000 Americans died from synthetic opioid overdoses; For comparison: in 2023 more than 40,000 people died as a result of gun violence.

Because the fentanyl crisis is a complex policy issue to solve, it is easy to weaponize and oversimplify politics. There appears to be evidence, at least anecdotally, that some voters view the Biden administration as ineffective in handling the crisis. For example, a mother whose son died last year from fentanyl poisoning told NBC News that she was a committed Democrat who donated to Democratic campaigns. But now Trump is calling on her more on the issue, as she sees Democrats’ approach to the fentanyl crisis as a hands-off. She said she will no longer vote Democratic.

Another grieving mother told NBC News that there is a movement among those affected by the fentanyl crisis and it is “leaning to the right.” That’s very ironic because fentanyl overdose deaths have increased dramatically during the Trump administration.

Not only that, but Trump’s ideas for addressing the fentanyl crisis are misguided. First, he has focused exclusively on the supply side of the illicit trade: he has called for the use of military resources against Mexican cartels and labeled them as terrorist organizations. He says Mexico will be bombed. Trump also wants to reduce illegal border crossings to prevent the influx of fentanyl (which again will not affect the supply of the deadly drug, as it is the Americans who most of it). While they are completely unreasonable as policy tools to address the crisis, they do sound like quick fixes to voters desperate for solutions.

Trump and Republicans are also overlooking fentanyl’s built-in economic benefit to drug cartels because it’s all about maximizing profits. Fentanyl is powerful, cheap and very easy to make. Because of its potency – it is about 100 times more powerful than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin – even smuggling a small amount of it yields huge profits. According to the Times investigation, the chemicals to produce a kilogram of fentanyl could cost a Mexican cartel about $800, which could “yield a profit of as much as $640,000” on the street. In other words, drug cartels “could respond to greater interdiction by simply increasing production and trafficking more,” as David Bier of the Cato Institute testified before Congress last year.

“It is more than 90 percent easier to legally enter the country with hard drugs than to cross the border illegally,” Bier said. To state the obvious, even if illegal immigration were magically eradicated today, the fentanyl trade would still be happening tomorrow.

That’s why Republicans and Trump’s intense focus on the supply side of fentanyl to solve the crisis — i.e. border security and declaring war on Mexico — is so shortsighted. Instead, much more emphasis should be placed on demand – that is, on addiction treatment and harm reduction strategies such as supervised consumption sites. Otherwise, the supply will not decrease and it will not be migrants crossing the border with the drugs.

Marcela García is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @marcela_elisa and on Instagram @marcela_elisa.