Seizures by Feds of Little-Known Drug Spike

While Customs and Border Protection saw a year-over-year decline in the seizure of many drugs in fiscal year 2025, the amount of khat seized more than doubled.  

In fiscal year 2025, which ended on Sept. 30, CBP seized more than 46,000 pounds of khat, up from 17,600 pounds in 2024. The street value of a pound of khat is about $125, according to CBP.

Khat is a flowering evergreen shrub grown in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The drug is typically chewed like tobacco and is a stimulant, often causing manic behavior, paranoia, nightmares, delusions, hallucinations, and hyperactivity, according to the agency. 

Khat can also cause gastric disorders and insomnia, and is illegal in the U.S.  

While CBP also saw an increase in marijuana, cocaine, and heroin seizures in 2025, the spike in khat represented the largest year-over-year percentage change. Still, the apprehensions of khat in 2025 remain below 2023 apprehension levels of 70,000 pounds, and 2022 seizures of 175,000 pounds.  

In addition to CBP, the U.S. Coast Guard also plays a critical role in drug seizures. On Thursday, the Coast Guard announced it had seized over 500,000 pounds of cocaine in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean in fiscal year 2025—a record.  

“That’s 193 million potentially lethal doses kept off America’s streets,” according to the Coast Guard.  

The increased drug apprehensions is not a surprise, say immigration officials who credit the uptick in seizures to the Border Patrol agents no longer spending time processing illegal aliens, but on patrol in the field instead.  

“We know for a fact that less drugs are crossing our border, but we watch our seizures go up, and so … during the previous four years, those large seizures we’re seeing were the large seizures that weren’t happening, and they were getting to the United States, and they were infecting our communities,” U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks said at a recent press conference in Washington, D.C.  

Under the Biden administration, the criminal cartels began making more money smuggling people into the U.S. than they could make smuggling drugs, according to immigration officials. Even before President Donald Trump returned to office in January, immigration experts predicted Trump’s plan to secure the border and end the parole of illegal aliens into the U.S. would lead the cartels to change business models and rely more heavily on drug smuggling, especially through ports.  

In the Border Patrol’s Ramey Sector, which includes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, agents seized 9,600 pounds of cocaine in fiscal year 2025, compared with 5,900 pounds in 2024 and 5,300 pounds in 2023. 

Concerns over smugglers and cartels transporting drugs to the U.S. via boat has led the Trump administration to carry out over a dozen strikes on vessels believed to be carrying drugs in international waters. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the most recent strike Thursday evening.  

“As we’ve said before, vessel strikes on narco-terrorists will continue until their the poisoning of the American people stops,” Hegseth said.  

“To all narco-terrorists who threaten our homeland: If you want to stay alive, stop trafficking drugs,” the secretary warned. “If you keep trafficking deadly drugs, we will kill you.” 

The post Seizures by Feds of Little-Known Drug Spike appeared first on The Daily Signal.