President Trump has caused federal drug prosecutions to plummet as his administration prioritizes kidnapping immigrants off the streets.
Reuters has reported that the Trump administration is prosecuting people for breaking federal drug laws at the lowest rate in over two decades.
“We’re seeing a reduced amount of time on long-term investigations so agents can go out in their raid gear and be seen supporting immigration raids,” an anonymous senior Justice Department official told Reuters.
While drug overdose deaths did drop during the Biden administration, drug trafficking itself hasn’t tailed off at all. In fact, it rose by six percent this year, while the number of people charged with drug trafficking fell by six percent, according to Reuters. Charges for “drug conspiracy” fell by 15 percent, and prosecutions for using illegal guns for drug trafficking fell by five percent.
This has, in all likelihood, been caused by the Trump administration’s decision to prioritize arresting as many immigrants as possible. “You cannot conduct thorough, multi-agency drug investigations if you’re running around doing this other stuff,” said a former DEA official who oversaw the shift diverting agents to immigration enforcement.
That, along with decisions like shutting down the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, has made it harder for officials at the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to do their jobs. Instead of investigating cartels, they’re whisked away to assist in immigration raids, even if they have no background or experience in them.
Trump and his Cabinet seem to think that Mexican and South American immigrants are the primary arbiters of drug trafficking. “[President Trump’s] highly successful efforts at closing the border and removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from our communities, along with prosecuting violent drug traffickers and targeting transnational cartels, means less illegal drugs are circulating in American communities,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in response to Reuters’s story.
But the numbers prove that’s simply not the case. It’s been clear from the very start that this administration is more concerned with the appearance of strength and success than actually being strong and successful. Echoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s depraved photo ops, ATF and DEA agents have been specifically directed to display their agency badges on their armor so that the White House can post them on social media.
“A lot of good cases are just going stagnant for some photo-op bullshit,” said a former ATF agent.
The ATF and DEA did not respond to Reuters’s questions about the priority shift.
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