The Washington Post is being mocked for a story it ran over the weekend in which it called the drop in seizures of fentanyl “mysterious.”
The article, titled “The mysterious drop in fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border” by the Post’s Mexico and Central America correspondent, Mary Beth Sheridan, seeks to get to the bottom of the major drop-off in fentanyl seizures this year compared to last.
Per the Customs and Border Protection data she cites in her piece, monthly seizures in 2024 averaged 1,700 pounds, and in 2025, they are averaging 746 pounds.
The White House contends that one needs look no further than the policies Trump has implemented.
“The drop in fentanyl seizures at the border is only a mystery to Washington Post reporters suffering from Trump-Derangement Syndrome. Everyone else knows the simple truth: President Trump closed our border to illegal drug traffickers and Americans are safer because of it,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Breitbart News.
“March, fentanyl traffic at the Southern Border had fallen by more than half from the same time last year — while Joe Biden’s open border was still terrorizing America,” she added.
The drop in fentanyl seizures has coincided with a substantial decline in illegal immigration, as apprehensions along the U.S. southern border dropped 95 percent from April 2024 compared to April 2025, illustrating the strength of Trump’s policies in disincentivizing illegal mass migration.
Trump has notably surged military forces to the border, which one might argue would deter cartels and smugglers from trying to bring fentanyl into America because theoretically their chances of an unsuccessful smuggling mission are higher with increased border presence and stricter policies on the American side.
Yet Sheridan argues the opposite.
“The decline is occurring even as the Trump administration has deployed thousands of troops to the border and expanded drone flights. With more boots on the ground, you’d think seizures would go up — not down,” she writes.
Her article has also faced ridicule from White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“The Washington ComPost clearly suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Cheung wrote in a post on X. “They can’t stand that President Trump’s strong border policies have led to a DECREASE in fentanyl coming into the U.S.”
Leavitt called the newspaper “pathetic.”
The official X account of the Department of Homeland Security also weighed in to dispel the notion of a “mystery.”
“It’s no mystery. On day one, [President] Trump closed our borders to drug traffickers. From March 2024 to March 2025 fentanyl traffic at the southern border fell by 54%,” the account noted. “The world has heard the message loud and clear.”
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