The Biden-era decision to let fentanyl shipments “walk” through New Mexico now collides head-on with Trump’s war on the cartels that supplied them.
Story Snapshot
- Federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents let huge fentanyl loads move into New Mexico between 2023 and 2025 while Biden was in office, shocking even the state’s Democrat governor.[2][6][8]
- A whistleblower says agents were told to stand down, allowing at least 1.8 million pills to reach communities as overdose deaths spiked.[2]
- Justice Department lawyers later cleared the strategy as “reasonable,” deepening distrust of Washington insiders and raising questions about accountability.[14]
- President Trump’s second-term cartel crackdown now stands in sharp contrast to the Biden-era gamble that let poison hit American streets.[1][6]
Biden-Era DEA Strategy Let Fentanyl Flood New Mexico
Between 2023 and 2025, Drug Enforcement Administration agents in New Mexico tracked major fentanyl shipments but often chose not to seize them.[2] Records and interviews reviewed by the Associated Press show hundreds of thousands of pills, and possibly millions, reached communities while prosecutors tried to build bigger cases against traffickers.[2] In one documented delivery, agents watched as roughly 74,000 pills were dropped at an Albuquerque mobile home park and did not intervene.[8][9] These shipments moved during Joe Biden’s presidency, when the White House itself had labeled fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction.”[2]
Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent David Howell, based in New Mexico, filed formal whistleblower complaints in 2023 over these tactics.[2][13] He told reporters, “We poisoned our community to make cases,” arguing that officials knowingly allowed lethal drugs to circulate while overdose deaths surged.[7][13] Howell’s disclosures claim that agents on one multi-state investigation allowed at least 1.8 million fentanyl pills to be delivered rather than seized.[2][13] A former Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor, speaking anonymously, backed that claim and said “millions” of pills were let “walk” during the operation.[2][13]
Justice Department Clears Itself As Public Outrage Builds
After Howell’s complaint, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility opened an internal review of the New Mexico cases.[14] In a 2024 summary, that office said prosecutors and Drug Enforcement Administration agents had acted within department “fentanyl guidance” and made “reasonable” decisions when they chose not to stop suspected drug vehicles.[14] The report concluded their actions did not violate any law or rule and did not pose a “substantial and specific danger to public health and safety.”[14] For many families living with the fallout of fentanyl, that legal language sounded detached from the human cost.
The Drug Enforcement Administration echoed the review, insisting that public descriptions of agents “knowingly permitting fentanyl to reach communities” were false.[2][6] A spokesperson said the decisions were lawful, reasonable, and consistent with department guidance, stressing the use of court-approved wiretaps and surveillance aimed at major trafficking organizations.[2][3] Former United States Attorney Alex Uballez, who oversaw the strategy, defended it by saying, “The bigger fish are worth catching.”[2][8] Critics respond that bigger fish do not excuse flooding small towns with deadly pills while overdoses climb.
New Mexico’s Democrat Governor Turns On Biden’s DEA
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, reacted with rare fury toward a federal agency run under her own party’s president.[6][9] After the investigation went public, she said federal authorities made a “deliberate decision” to let hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills “flood into New Mexico communities.”[9] She highlighted the 74,000-pill delivery into an Albuquerque mobile home park and blasted officials who “stood by while monitoring shipments, tallying exact pill counts, and watching as these deadly drugs hit the streets.”[9] Her office has now called for a criminal probe of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s conduct.[6]
Governor Lujan Grisham’s statement underscored a key concern for many Americans: federal power without accountability.[6][9] She argued the agency knew people would die if the pills entered neighborhoods and “let it happen anyway.”[8] That anger is not coming from conservative voices alone. It now includes state-level Democrats who watched communities suffer while Washington lawyers signed off on risk-heavy tactics. For constitutional conservatives, this looks like another case where unelected officials gamble with lives, then hide behind internal memos.
Trump’s Cartel Crackdown Shows A Very Different Approach
President Donald Trump has made his second-term war on drug cartels a centerpiece of his security agenda, arguing that the United States must treat the worst traffickers more like foreign enemies than common criminals.[2][6] His administration has supported aggressive operations against cartel networks, including pressure on Mexico to hand over high-level traffickers to face U.S. justice.[8] Mexican officials have responded by transferring dozens of cartel members to the United States, labeling them “high-impact criminals” who threaten national security.[8]
New Mexico governor calls for criminal probe of DEA allowing fentanyl shipments to hit streets https://t.co/CRHGmSkoPd
— 23ABC News (@23ABCNews) June 26, 2026
Trump’s push has also included controversial military strikes on suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, under the banner of defending Americans from narcoterrorist groups.[6] Legal experts debate the boundaries of that strategy, but the political contrast with the Biden-era Drug Enforcement Administration approach in New Mexico is stark. Under Biden, agents let fentanyl shipments move to “build cases,” trusting process and guidance documents.[2][14] Under Trump, the focus has shifted to hitting cartels hard and fast, aiming to stop poison before it crosses into U.S. communities.[1][7] For many conservative Americans, that difference speaks to a basic duty of government: protect your people first, then worry about paperwork.
Sources:
[1] Web – Trump’s Blowing Up Narcos. Biden Ignored Them — Now We’re Learning …
[2] Web – AP investigation finds DEA allowed fentanyl shipments in New …
[3] Web – ‘We poisoned our community’: New Mexico DEA agents watched fentanyl …
[6] Web – DEA watched fentanyl hit New Mexico without taking action, AP …
[7] Web – New Mexico governor calls for criminal probe of DEA allowing …
[8] Web – Staggering amounts of fentanyl hit streets as the DEA watched and …
[9] Web – ‘Knew People Would Die’: New Mexico Democrat Governor Erupts at Biden …
[13] YouTube – DEA turned a BLIND EYE? Whistleblower makes explosive Fentanyl …
[14] Web – Staggering amounts of fentanyl hit streets as DEA watched … – PBS
