77% of Drug Traffickers Are U.S. Citizens, Not Illegal Immigrants

When people think of drug smugglers, they often imagine illegal immigrants sneaking into the United States across the southwest border. But the reality is that the vast majority of drug smuggling occurs at ports of entry (including airports), and the vast majority of traffickers are U.S. citizens. According to data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, U.S. citizens had 77 percent of federal drug trafficking convictions in 2018. This percentage has grown from 69 percent in 2012. As Figure 1 shows, the share of drug traffickers who were illegal immigrants fell from 21 percent in 2012 to 16 percent in 2018.

The reason that drug traffickers are largely U.S. citizens is because most drug trafficking occurs at ports of entry because most drugs—other than marijuana—are easier to conceal in legal luggage than while crossing the Rio Grande or the desserts in Arizona. Figure 2 shows the location where Customs and Border Protection seizes drugs by drug type. Port officers seized between 80 and 90 percent of every major drug type except for marijuana. Even there, officers at ports made nearly half of all the seizures so far in 2019.

Congress should not treat illegal immigrants as if they dominate drug trafficking nor should it focus drug interdiction resources between ports of entry where little drug trafficking takes place. The only thing that has reduced drug trafficking at all has been legalization of marijuana at the state level, which shifted supply away from Mexico and to the United States.