Marijuana smuggling over the border since President Trump took office has been greatly slashed, according to a new analysis.
Since the end of the Obama administration, border seizures of marijuana have plummeted 80 percent.
As a result, 2019 “marijuana seizures will stand at only 5 percent of their 2009 high,” according to the new analysis from Princeton Policy Advisors.
Economic analyst Steven R. Kopits cited the explosion in states legalizing and taxing marijuana for the change and said such a “market” based shift could also be used to curb illegal immigration.
“As luck would have it, cannabis legalization is crushing the marijuana smuggling business. Seizures of marijuana by Border Patrol over the unsecured border in 2019 will have dropped by 80 percent — 80 percent! — since the start of the Trump administration. This year, marijuana seizures will stand at only 5 percent of their 2009 high. That’s incredible progress, and exactly the effect we’re looking to achieve using an analogous legalize-and-tax system for economic migrants,” said his analysis.
Kopits noted that since legislation has only targeted marijuana, other illegal contraband including humans and hard drugs have surged over the border.
“The legalization of marijuana demonstrates that we can close the southwest border using a market mechanism. We can end illegal immigration the same way,” he wrote.
In a white paper, he has suggested the creation of “market-based visas” that would let approved Central American immigrants purchase a work visa and enter the U.S. “on demand.”
He said that “in addition to closing the U.S. southwest border, MBVs would generate $30 billion in net federal revenues, end the black market in migrant labor, provide legal status without amnesty for eight million Hispanics, facilitate the identification and deportation of criminal aliens, deter birth tourism and the bringing of dependents and reduce the year round population of undocumented immigrants by 1-1.5 million.”
