A report from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection states that there was a significant increase in narcotics, unreported currency, weapons and numerous immigration violations during the fiscal year of 2022.
According to the report, the most noteworthy statistics include a 19% increase in cocaine seized and a 177% increase in “inadmissibles” encountered.
The CBP Fiscal Year 2022 began Oct. 1, 2021, and ended Sept. 30, 2022, the report states.
“As nonessential traffic resumed early in Fiscal Year 2022, overall workload volumes returned to normal but CBP officers continued to experience the ongoing trend of hard narcotics, particularly cocaine and significant gains in encounters of individuals without valid entry documents,” Laredo Field Office Director Eugene Crawford said in the report. “The hard narcotics volume underscores the seriousness of the drug threat we face and hemispheric economic and security challenges also tend to drive the migration volumes.”
During the fiscal year, the Laredo Field Office, which comprises eight ports of entry that extend from Brownsville to Del Rio, seized 47,755 pounds of narcotics, which is estimated to have a street value of $436 million.
The report provided a breakdown of each narcotic seized and consists of 10,243 pounds of cocaine, which is up 19% from Fiscal year 2021; 6,578 pounds of marijuana; nearly 30,476 pounds of methamphetamine; 176 pounds of heroin; and nearly 282 pounds of fentanyl.
In addition, the report states that $5.8 million in unreported currency was seized along with 320 weapons and 78,487 rounds of ammunition.
CBP officers also determined that more than 57,732 non-U.S. citizens were inadmissible due to violations of immigration law, which is an uptick of 177%t over Fiscal Year 2021.
The report concluded stating that CBP agriculture specialists intercepted 99,264 items of quarantine animal and plant material as well as 5,015 pests.
