The numbers are in, and they tell a story that no amount of Democratic talking points can spin away.
FinCEN — the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — analyzed bank reports of suspicious transactions linked to suspected human smuggling. They identified 67,540 reports totaling nearly $5 billion. The overwhelming majority occurred in 2023 and 2024, under Biden, when more than 7,000 suspicious transaction reports were flagged every quarter. By the second half of 2025, after Trump’s policies had fully taken hold, fewer than 2,000 reports were flagged per quarter.
Current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the numbers prove President Trump has put the smugglers “on the defensive.” That is the understatement of the year. The cartels built their business model on Biden’s open border. They charged per person, per load, per crossing. When Biden was president, the crossings were so frequent and so numerous that cartel income from human smuggling hit historic highs. Close the border, enforce the law, and the revenue stream dries up. Supply and demand applies to criminal enterprises too.
The fentanyl numbers are the ones that put human faces on the statistics. According to CDC data highlighted by the Trump White House, deaths from synthetic opioids — which includes fentanyl — dropped 22 percent, from 48,913 in 2024 under Biden to 38,084 in 2025 under Trump. Drug overdose deaths overall fell 14 percent, from 81,313 to 69,973.
? IT'S OFFICIAL: Mexico has AGREED to deploy its armed forces with the US and President Trump to CRUSH the cartels at the border
Terrorist designations are surging the USA's ability to target cartels ?
FINALLY!
Keep this up and let SecWar Pete Hegseth take kinetic action… pic.twitter.com/hRTL67T0ss
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 14, 2026
Ten thousand Americans who didn’t die from fentanyl overdose in 2025. Ten thousand families that didn’t get a call. Ten thousand funerals that didn’t happen. That’s not a statistic. That’s what enforcement actually delivers to real people.
The left spent four years telling America that border enforcement was cruel, that it didn’t work, that the humane approach was to let people in and hope for the best. The humane approach produced $5 billion in cartel income and 48,913 fentanyl deaths in a single year. Trump’s approach — closing the border, deporting criminals, blowing up cartel drug-smuggling boats — cut cartel income by more than half and saved ten thousand American lives. Which approach was actually cruel?
The work isn’t finished. The cartels still have deep resources and tentacles throughout the Mexican and Venezuelan governments. The fentanyl pipeline still has remnants. The fight isn’t over just because the numbers are moving in the right direction.
? IT'S OFFICIAL: Mexico has AGREED to deploy its armed forces with the US and President Trump to CRUSH the cartels at the border
Terrorist designations are surging the USA's ability to target cartels ?
FINALLY!
Keep this up and let SecWar Pete Hegseth take kinetic action… pic.twitter.com/hRTL67T0ss
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 14, 2026
But direction matters. And the direction under this administration — on every metric that counts — is the right one.
Enforcement works. Stopping illegal aliens works. Kinetic strikes on drug smuggling boats work. Arresting illegal alien criminals and sending them back works.
redstate
Biden told America it couldn’t be done. The cartel’s bank account and the CDC’s overdose statistics say otherwise. Remember that in November.
