CBP has seized 12,500 lbs of fentanyl during the first 4 months of the FY23 fiscal year.

12,000 lbs at ports of entry (vehicles and body carriers)

477 lbs between ports of entry (Border Patrol highway checkpoints and backpackers)

Here's total fentanyl seizures. Source is CBP. Here's fentanyl seized by CBP's Office of Field Operations (at ports of entry) = 12,000 lbs

Here's what CBP data tells us about fentanyl trafficking.

In Dec, CBP seized 4,500 lbs of fentanyl, highest monthly total ever.

NOTE: seizure data is generally viewed as a measure of how much the cartels are attempting to send, not the govt's ability to stop it. Of the 4,500 lbs, only 5 lbs were seized by the Border Patrol (between ports of entry). See here:

I'm catching up on this morning's House Judiciary border hearing and just saw clip of Rep. Chip Roy claiming fentanyl is "pouring in" between ports of entry.

That is NOT TRUE, and frankly, a rather insidious falsehood The vast majority of CBP fentanyl seizures are at ports of entry (in vehicles).

In December, for example, CBP seized 4,500 pounds of fentanyl, a staggering amount that is by far the highest total ever.

Of that, just FIVE pounds were seized by US Border Patrol

SCOOP - Smugglers in Mexico have sawed through the border wall 3,272 times over the past three years, according to CBP maintenance records obtained by @washingtonpost via FOIA. The breaches to the bollard fencing cost $2.6M to repair washingtonpost.com/national-secur… I’ll add some photos of repairs to the breaches. Along one span of new Trump barrier between Naco and Douglas, AZ, I counted 71 of these.

Here’s an example of a bollard with a “boot”

Biden budget request slashes CBP funding for "Border Security Assets and Infrastructure" from $1.5B to $54 million. No $ for border wall Budget for CBP "Procurement, Construction and Improvements" would drop from $1.84B to $925 million, a 50 percent cut dhs.gov/sites/default/…

SCOOP: ICE deportations fell in April to lowest monthly level on record, preliminary data shows washingtonpost.com/national/biden… ICE removal numbers fell sharply after Title 42 went into effect last year, but deportations have dropped further in recent months, from about 6k during final months of Trump to 3k last month.

Interior arrests by ICE are down ~60 percent under Biden's new priorities.

NEW: CBP has published March numbers showing 172,331 taken into custody, the most in nearly two decades.

The blue line on the graph below is 2021. CBP had to redo it chart to stretch the Y axis. Our story washingtonpost.com/national/march… Blue line shows increase in unaccompanied minors, with 18,890 taken into custody in March, a record

Thread: Could Biden have done anything differently at the border? I asked some respected former DHS officials who served under Dem admins.

Given the signs of building migration pressures, they said Biden could have started with a clearer, firm message: “The border is CLOSED." He'd say: "We're in a pandemic. Trump’s policies were wrong and I’ve ordered a full review. But nothing is changing for now.” Then Biden takes spring 2021 to prepare his system rebuild, while advancing immigration bill & waiting for migration pressures/expectations to dissipate.

Biden is no longer expelling minors via Title 42, the public health order, which the admin rightly points out deprived them of right to seek US asylum.

But the characterizations of how it work before are not quite accurate. Mexico did not allow the return of non-Mexican minors. After Title 42 was implemented last March, the U.S. generally attempted to return Central American minors via ICE Air, using hotels as staging facilities, with contractors to watch the minors. Courts halted the practice and told the Trump admin hotels were not appropriate.

So much of the conversation around border "solutions" is predicated on the idea of a violent, undifferentiated mass called the Northern Triangle. But this thinking is increasingly divorced from the current reality of Central American migration (a short thread) Chart above shows unaccompanied minors taken into custody by CBP. There are far more minors from Guatemala-- nearly 5x the number arriving from El Salvador. That was not the case in FY2016, when El Salvador had a much higher murder rate.

Next look at families:

Sobering testimony from former DHS counterrorism official @NeuSummits who tells House committee there is a "high likelihood" of a domestic terrorist attack in coming months, calling it a problem we'll be dealing with "for the next 10 to 20 years" homeland.house.gov/activities/hea… ADL's @JGreenblattADL: "People in positions of authority need to clearly and consistently call out disinformation and hate, whether it’s coming from the President or a first-term member of Congress…they don’t belong in public conversation with a seat at the table."

SCOOP - Mexico has stopped taking back Central American families "expelled" across the border under Title 42 , leaving CBP to release them into the US. Lots of worry at DHS & beyond that this will trigger new border crisis in middle of pandemic. W/@ksieff washingtonpost.com/national/mexic… This is a big deal because the Trump admin relied on Mexico to facilitate its deterrent policies-- even more so during pandemic using Title 42 to expel most border crossers.

But a new Mexican law requires families w/children to go to shelters. Mexico's border shelters are full.

Trump is right that Obama "built the cages.” But the “kids in cages” trope has become so completely divorced from context and history that it has left the public even more confused about how the American immigration enforcement system works. A quick thread: I know this history a bit because I was there. In 2014, when Central American families, teenagers and children began crossing the border in the Rio Grande Valley in an unprecedented migration wave, the Border Patrol (and the Obama admin) was completely overwhelmed.

SCOOP - The Trump admin may have triggered a huge coronavirus outbreak at a Virginia immigration jail this summer when it brought in detainees from AZ & FL, using flights whose main purpose was to rush ICE tactical teams to the DC protests washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/ic… with @aolivo ICE said the purpose of the transfers was to avoid overcrowding and keep detainees safe. But facilities in AZ and FL weren't full. And by sending detainees to Farmville, Va., the agency could skirt restrictions on the use of charter flights for employee travel

SCOOP Trump has told aides to move forward with his plan to paint the border wall black, and costs are projected to be at least $500 million, according to govt estimates obtained by The Post washingtonpost.com/immigration/tr… with @jdawsey1 Estimates range from $1.2M per mile for two coats of acrylic paint all the way up to $6.8M per mile for fancy "powder coating" used on automobiles and appliances. CBP officials and military commanders think paint is unnecessary and believed last fall they'd talked Trump out of it

NEW –Trump’s border wall is vulnerable to flash flooding, and will likely require the installation of hundreds of large storm gates that will remain open for months every summer to prevent the structure from being damaged or toppled - with @vanhoutenphoto washingtonpost.com/immigration/tr… Many of the gates will be installed in remote areas that lack electricity, so they can't be operated remotely or automatically. That means U.S. agents need to leave them open during "monsoon" flood season, creating gaps for smugglers & migrants requiring agents to monitor them

This is first video I’ve seen of a climber topping brand-new bollard fencing. The guy slides down the back like it’s a fire pole. Is that SD sector?

https://twitter.com/fotornelas/status/1202065077328924672

Note the technique of the smuggler who removes the ladder. He hooks his ankles and feet around the bollards and presses with his legs to hold himself in place, hands-free. The he removes the ladder and slides down in seconds. He’s done this before

SCOOP smugglers have been sawing through brand-new sections of Trump’s border wall using cordless power tools, cutting through the bollards to create gaps wide enough for people and drug loads to pass through washingtonpost.com/national/smugg… The govt has not acknowledged the damage, and it’s unclear how often the breaches have occurred. But border patrols agents say the smuggling crews are using reciprocating saws ("recip saws") with relatively inexpensive diamond-grit blades made for cutting steel and concrete.

BREAKING -- CBP has released border numbers for May. Just stunning

144,258 apprehensions plus inadmissibles, up 32 percent from April
More than 100k were families or children
680k processed during first 8 months of FY19 There it is

Finally have a chance to respond to your thoughtful thread @jdelreal. I realize it's a troubling story and you're concerned about how it could be used for "talking points." I have deep respect for your work but I'm troubled by the implications of that.

https://twitter.com/jdelreal/status/1066044751248449536

This is a complicated, emotional and intensely politicized story. It needs honest open-eyed reporting. Sensitive, humane, yes. But honest. That's our job. So we went to rural Guatemala to report this story and find out why so many children are leaving.

Filling my inbox, twitter is some version of the argument “Obama did it too!” re child detentions and separations. Usually with more profanity. So, a bit of context, as someone who covered this in 2014 and reported stories that embarassed the Obama admin washingtonpost.com/world/the_amer… During the “border kids crisis” in 2014 there were children and families in arguably worse detention conditions, because Border Patrol was overwhelmed. And Obama admin responded by a) expanding cage-like short-term detention, and b)trying to build more ICE family jails