(NewsNation) — Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks exclusively told NewsNation his agency is ready for a possible onslaught from the cartel despite record-low crossings and decreased fentanyl seizures.
Banks explained to NewsNation that the more the U.S. puts security along the southern border, the more traffic is being pushed to the coast.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has Coast Guard and destroyers monitoring and patrolling those areas.
Per U.S. Customs and Border Protection, total fentanyl seizures across March and April totaled 1,371 pounds. During the last fiscal year, 21,900 pounds were seized. It is the first time in nearly 3 years that any month has had less than 1,000 pounds of fentanyl seizures.
Due to the United States’ improved border security, Banks says the cartels are looking to traffic fentanyl and other hard narcotics into other areas more frequently, specifically Canada, Central and South America and Europe.
“Instead of being pushed north into the United States, they’re looking for new markets, because we’re closing the market on the United States,” Banks said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Tuesday afternoon the largest fentanyl bust in U.S. history, with 11.5 kilos (25.4 pounds) seized, approximately 3 million fentanyl pills.
It was a multiagency operation headed by the DEA, which saw 16 people arrested, including high-ranking Sinaloa cartel member Alberto Salazar Amaya, who was living illegally in Salem, Oregon.
The drugs were found in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well as Phoenix, Arizona, and Utah.
“More arrests are coming, I guarantee you that,” Bondi said in a media conference Tuesday.
“And these dealers, these sellers, these street-level sellers, better look out, because we will not be negotiating with you. We will bring you to justice, and we will not stop until this poison is off our streets in our country.”