As drugs pour across the southern border, only about 18 percent of vehicles entering from Mexico are searched by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, their K-9s, and x-ray equipment, according to Guadalupe Ramirez, CBP director of field operations for Arizona.
The vast majority of the drugs that are seized at the southern border are being driven through the ports of entry, hidden in commercial trucks and personal vehicles.
In one week in August, officers at Arizona’s small border town of Nogales port of entry seized more than 1.2 million fentanyl pills.
More contraband-detecting technology is in the pipeline for some ports of entry, including Nogales, where CBP’s ability to search will increase from 100 commercial trucks a day to 600–800 per day, Ramirez said….