Drug smuggling

Mexican cartels using border migrant crisis to distract agents from drug smuggling, Carroll says

Mexican cartels are using the migrant crisis at the southern border to overwhelm U.S. agents stationed there so they can smuggle drugs across with greater ease, said James Carroll, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"These drug traffickers, they're smart, they know what they're doing," said Carroll during an appearance Wednesday on "Fox & Friends." "They send the immigrants through, they wait until Customs and Border Protection is manned up, dealing with [the migrants], then it's an open border and they sail the drugs in, they flood the zone with drugs."

Central American families have reached the border in growing numbers since October, creating what is widely considered a humanitarian crisis.

In some cities, days pass without anyone being processed. In San Diego, up to 80 are handled each day, but the line in Tijuana, across the border, is the longest anywhere — about 4,800 people.

Carroll noted that more than 70,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2017, much of it illicit substances such as illicit fentanyl and heroin.