I doubt more than 2% of the fentanyl in the US comes direct from China. China just ships to Mexico, which makes it to the US through the wide open southern border.
Correct. "The majority of precursor chemicals for illicitly manufactured fentanyl come from China and are synthesized into fentanyl in Mexico. Fentanyl is then smuggled across the border into the United States" [1].
That said, "China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States" [2].
> which makes it to the US through the wide open southern border
No. "Most of the illicit fentanyl coming across the U.S.-Mexico border is smuggled through official ports of entry" [3].
[1] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1953
[2] https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...
[3] https://www.npr.org/2023/08/07/1192557904/part-1-investigati...
"Last year, we seized about 700 pounds of fentanyl," Modlin stated. "That was encountered – 52% of that, so the majority of that – was encountered in the field. So that is predominantly being backpacked across the border."
And that seizure is from only a vanishing minority of migrants who were searched. Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are just sneak in without any checking. The formal ports of entry undergo far more validation and hence more stuff is found.
But where’s the fun in that.
The real fun lies in dehumanizing the illegal immigrants so one can hopefully start a pogrom against them. Now that’s fun!
One TEU can weigh up to 67,500 lbs [1]. Humans can’t carry more than 20 to 30% of their body weight for meaningful distances. To rival the capacity of a single container, assuming only really fit men, you’d need 1,350 backpackers (assuming 200 lb men carrying 50 lbs each, which is ridiculous).
If every one of the nation’s 2mm illegal crossers were a fit man carrying their maximum load on a backpack, it would total to the tonnage of 1,500 containers. The Port of LA processed over 500x that in June [2]. The throughput at a signal American port is 3+ orders of magnitude more than could possibly be carried by every illegal border crosser by backpack.
It’s wild for anyone with a basic sense of numeracy to believe that humans carrying backpacks are bringing a material amount of anything into this country, let alone a product for mass consumption.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit
[2] https://www.portoflosangeles.org/references/2024-news-releas...
The stuff they didn't catch is the problem, which they can only estimate.
No. This should be plainly obvious for anyone who understands the scale and economies of logistics. If fentanyl were mostly backpacked in, it wouldn’t be a national problem.
Copied from another comment and sourced from NPR
52% of Tucson’s Border Patrol seizures were on the field. Like, 100% of the wine I drank this afternoon was delicious; that doesn’t mean there is no terrible wine.