Latest news with #drugseizures
Fox News
7 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Coast Guard overhaul takes off amid Trump administration's immigration, narcotics crackdown
Efforts to overhaul the Coast Guard are gaining traction on Capitol Hill — coinciding with the Trump administration's endeavor to revamp the service to address illegal migrant crossings and drug seizures. Multiple initiatives to update the Coast Guard are underway in both chambers of Congress, and within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). All seek to elevate the service so it's on par with the other branches of the military that fall under the Department of Defense, and better equip it to tackle drug and immigration interdiction missions. House legislation authorizing funding for the service through 2029 recently cleared a committee vote and aims to empower the service to conduct these missions, according to Rep. Mike Ezell, R-Miss., a co-sponsor of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025. "The Coast Guard is very similar to law enforcement," Ezell told Fox News Digital July 16. "It's going to fight the narcotics epidemic that we have coming into the country. Our Coast Guard officers and men and women are going to really be able to go after that." Such missions are only increasing for the Coast Guard. DHS announced July 15 that the service had seized a total of 242,244 pounds of cocaine since President Donald Trump took office in January. That amounts to a more than 100% increase in seizures in comparison to the same timeframe in 2024 during the Biden administration, according to DHS. Ezell, along with Reps. Sam Graves, R-Mo., Rick Larsen, D-Wash., and Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., introduced the Coast Guard Authorization Act July 2, and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed the measure July 15, paving the way for the measure to head to the House floor. One of the most significant provisions in the legislation would establish a civilian secretary of the Coast Guard to align more similarly with the other branches of the military that fall under the Department of Defense. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of DHS and does not have a top civilian leading the service. Installing a secretary of the service will "streamline some of this red tape that we've seen over the years that's slowed progress down" because he or she will report directly to the White House and Congress — eliminating multiple layers of bureaucracy, according to Ezell. "This person is going to be instrumental in getting things done," Ezell said. "Coming from my background as a sheriff and the chief of police, I know the importance of coordinating with other agencies to get the job done," Ezell said. "When you have one person that's a point of contact who will put all the information out from the president, from the DHS Secretary, it'll be so much simpler." Prior to being elected to the House, Ezell served as a law enforcement officer for over 40 years, including serving as sheriff of Jackson County, Mississippi. Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia introduced legislation in the Senate in April that would similarly establish a secretary for the Coast Guard. "The establishment of a Secretary of the Coast Guard is an important step in ensuring our nation's maritime security is led with the strength and efficiency it deserves to ensure it can fulfill its mission and adapt to any challenges," Scott said in an April statement. "It's critical to have a dedicated Secretary for the U.S. Coast Guard working closely with President Trump, our military leaders, and the Department of Homeland Security for a coordinated, successful effort to keep the nation safe," Scott said. The efforts on Capitol Hill also align with initiatives underway at the Department of Homeland Security to reform the service. In April, the Coast Guard unveiled its new Force Design 2028 plan to revamp the service's organizational structure, personnel, acquisitions, contracting and technology, in keeping with directives from Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The proposal aims to beef up the Coast Guard's force, which currently consists of roughly 43,000 active-duty personnel, and determine which specialties need reinforcement to expand training. The blueprint also calls for a series of changes to better align the Coast Guard with the Department of Defense's standards for physical fitness, body composition and grooming. The Coast Guard, unlike other military services, does not enforce fitness standards unless personnel are attached to boat crews of law enforcement teams. The initiative comes in response to the Trump administration's efforts to tackle illegal immigration and drug smuggling, a DHS official familiar with the plan told Fox News Digital in April. "We've been making changes practically daily in the service to really keep moving forward," the official told Fox News Digital in April. "The goal of 2028 is that the transformation of the service will be complete by 2028."
Fox News
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Border crossings plummet to historic lows; Trump's enforcement policies yield big results
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported the lowest number of border crossings in recorded history in June. Nationwide, there were 25,228 CBP encounters, the lowest monthly number the agency has recorded, including a "historical low" of 8,024 apprehensions. Encounters include legal ports of entry, whereas apprehensions are arrests of those coming into the United States illegally. At the southern border alone, there were only 6,072 apprehensions in June, which is "15% lower than the previous March record." June also brought along the lowest number of apprehensions in a day on June 28 with just 136. "From shutting down illegal crossings to seizing fentanyl and enforcing billions in tariffs, CBP is delivering results on every front. Under this administration, we are protecting this country with relentless focus, and the numbers prove it." CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said in a press release Wednesday. Like May, there were no parole releases, compared with 27,766 in 2024.. CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE On drug seizures, the department said there was a 3% uptick from last month in fentanyl seizures, with 742 pounds confiscated. Notably, there was a 102% increase in meth seizures from May, a 19% increase in heroin seizures and a 9% increase in cocaine seizures. According to the press release, CBP has also collected $108.9 billion in "all tariffs, taxes and fees," specifically noting the tariffs imposed by the president. Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls told Fox News Digital the change has been "peaceful" after a major strain on local resources, like the regional hospital, while crossings were soaring. Earlier Wednesday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced there was an 830% increase in assaults on ICE agents from last year. This comes as both border and immigration policies have seen major shifts in recent months since the border crisis under the Biden administration. "This new data reflects the violence against our law enforcement in cities across the country in the last few weeks. Politicians across the country, regardless of political stripe, must condemn this," Noem posted to X. As for Border Patrol, a gunman was killed and a local police officer was injured in a shooting in McAllen, Texas. ICE also recently faced a riot at the Prarieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where 12 individuals are facing charges, including some for attempted murder of federal officers. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP While the border is considered much quieter, protests and riots against federal immigration authorities amid mass deportation efforts have continued. Democrats in Congress recently introduced the VISIBLE Act to prevent agents from wearing face coverings in most instances and require visible identification. "When federal immigration agents show up and pull someone off the street in plainclothes with their face obscured and no visible identification, it only escalates tensions and spreads fear while shielding federal agents from basic accountability," Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said in a statement July 8.
The Independent
06-07-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Eradicating drugs from prisons may be unrealistic, but it should be the goal
The widespread availability of drugs in British prisons has long been among the more baffling conundrums of national life. How come institutions specifically built and managed to be secure have a drug problem that has, by common consent, reached crisis proportions? To put it another way, how can it be that places expressly designed to prevent people from getting out find it so difficult to stop illicit, and ever more harmful, substances from getting in? The figures we report today are truly shocking – or they would be, were it not for the pervasive sense of resignation about everything that pertains to our prisons. The ubiquity of drugs then risks being seen as just one aspect of a disastrously failing system. It is more than that. It is at the root of many other prison problems. Recorded at 21,145, annual drug seizures by prison officers in the year to March 2024 were more than 35 per cent up on the previous year, and nudging the record of 21,574 set four years before. Given the likelihood of undetected, or unchecked, possession, the figure for actual seizures is likely to understate the problem. In what comes perilously close to a concession of defeat, the Independent Monitoring Boards of prisons in the UK describe the movement of drugs into these institutions as 'a seemingly unstoppable flow'. There was a time when prison was seen as an opportunity to treat those with a drug habit. Success may have been limited, but it seems an even less realistic objective today. In our report, Mike Trace, head of a charity providing drug treatment in prisons and former drugs 'Czar' in the Blair government, says the number of treatment programmes in prison, including drug-free wings, has been slashed from 110 in 2013 to just 15 now. It is by no means unheard of for offenders who entered prison clean to emerge from their sentence with a dependency likely to land them back behind bars. No one, of course, would argue that freeing prisons from the scourge of drugs is simple. If it were, it would have been done long before now. The extent to which the problem has grown in recent years reflects a host of factors, from cuts to prison staffing under the austerity policies of previous governments – which resulted in the loss of many more experienced staff – to technological developments, such as miniature mobile phones and drones that allow inmates to circumvent more traditional prison security. Drones also facilitate deliveries of drugs in far greater quantities than would be possible via visitors or corrupt employees, and reduce the effectiveness of recently introduced X-ray scanners. A further complication is the wider variety of illicit drugs in circulation, some being hard to identify, which can have more harmful effects than before. The consequence is an increase, both in emergency hospital admissions and in violence among inmates and towards staff. Reprisals for drug-related debts have become a particular problem – and these are debts, it should be stressed, that have been incurred in prison. In the past, it was sometimes argued that drug-taking was tolerated in some prisons because it could calm down otherwise under-occupied and frustrated inmates. That argument is less tenable now. All these changes are well known to the prison authorities and those with monitoring and policy responsibilities. In our report, His Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, is quoted as saying that drugs are the biggest challenge currently facing many prisons, and that it is 'not acceptable that these levels of criminality are going on, unchecked'. He is right. It is not acceptable. But where is any real sense of urgency and direction to get to grips with such a pernicious and growing problem? The government has embarked on what it bills as the biggest overhaul of the prison system in decades. In the short term, it is addressing prison overcrowding through an emergency programme of early releases. It has a longer-term schedule for building new prisons and welcomes talk about a greater focus on work and rehabilitation. So far, so modestly good. But there is a lot of catching up to do, too – starting, perhaps, with better training, pay and status for prison staff. And it is hard not to detect a note of complacency in the response of the Justice Ministry to The Independent 's findings, which blamed past governments for the current situation, while asserting a 'zero-tolerance approach to drugs' and 'a clear impact' from the use of body scanners and drone no-fly zones. We are, though, a year into the new government, and it is hard to detect that tolerance for drugs in prison is any closer to zero than it was before, while the impact of scanners and no-fly zones seems a lot less clear than the Justice Ministry insists. Eradicating drugs from prison altogether may be unrealistic, but it should be the ambition, and it needs to be pursued with a lot more urgency and application than has been in evidence so far.
BBC News
02-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Drugs and criminal cash worth £1m seized at Manx ports since July
Criminal cash and drugs worth more than £1m have been seized at ports on the Isle of Man since July 2024, the government has £150,000 in cash and more than £880,000 worth of cannabis and cocaine, have been intercepted during the period along with some instances of steroids or prescription drugs. The Isle of Man Constabulary and Customs teams have made the discoveries at Ronaldsway Airport, the island's Sea Terminal in Douglas and via postal criminal goods were found concealed in vehicles, in parcels and freight, through searches of individuals, or through a mixture of random stops and existing police intelligence. The operations have led to a number of prosecutions or financial penalties, as well as civil forfeiture proceedings, with a number of cases still value of single seizures of drugs ranged from £100 to £220,000, and cash seizures were made when cash had not been declared. 'Clear message' In September, the Department of Home Affairs launched a strategy to tighten security at the island's Jane Poole-Wilson MHK, said the figures showed the "multi-agency approach to preventing, detecting and pursuing crime, led by the Constabulary, is disrupting criminal networks and safeguarding our residents" was being "effectively implemented".The seizures sent a "clear message" that the Isle of Man was "not a soft target for organised crime", she Constable Russ Foster said joint working between the constabulary and Customs was making the island a "hostile environment for organised crime". "By seizing drugs and the proceeds of crime in this way we are striking at the heart of these illicit criminal enterprises", he other law enforcement partners "we will continue to disrupt and dismantle organised crime groups who are blighting our island and bring the perpetrators to justice", he added. Read more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.
Globe and Mail
28-05-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
CBSA says 67 per cent of drugs seized in Operation Blizzard were coming into Canada from U.S.
More than 67 per cent of the drugs seized during a month-long cross-country Canada Border Services Agency operation were coming into Canada from the United States, the agency says. Operation Blizzard took place from Feb. 12 to March 13 and targeted illegal drugs and precursor chemicals transported by mail, air cargo or marine container, the CBSA said in a news release Wednesday. The agency said it focused on shipments going to the United States. CBSA said it conducted over 2,600 seizures across the country and just 17.5 per cent of the total seized was destined for the United States. The operation included 116 seizures of fentanyl, amounting to 1.73 kilograms of the deadly drug. CBSA said 1.44 kilograms of that fentanyl was headed to the United States. Investigation: How fentanyl transformed Victoria's Pandora Avenue from downtown hub to open-air drug market The agency said it also seized methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, opium, MDMA – also called ecstasy or molly – cannabis and cannabis-related products. 'CBSA personnel work day in and day out to prevent criminal organizations from exploiting our borders,' CBSA president Erin O'Gorman said in the news release. 'With Operation Blizzard, we stopped narcotics, synthetic opioids and fentanyl from reaching communities both at home and across the world.' Operation Blizzard was part of Canada's boosted border plan enacted in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, which he linked to the flow of fentanyl. Opinion: Is Canada's 'fentanyl czar' just about diplomacy – or could he actually help address the overdose crisis? Trump hit Canada with economywide tariffs in March, only to partially walk back the duties a few days later for imports compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade. Ottawa responded to Trump's initial tariff threat with a $1.3-billion border security plan and named Kevin Brosseau as the new 'fentanyl czar.' 'Fentanyl and other illegal drugs pose a threat to our communities and to public safety,' Brosseau said in the Wednesday news release. 'The Canada Border Services Agency, with initiatives like Operation Blizzard, is directly contributing to detect, disrupt and dismantle the fentanyl trade.' Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that fentanyl seizures at the Canada-U.S. border represented less than 0.1 per cent of the total seized between 2022 and 2024.
