Governor Gavin Newsom announced record fentanyl seizures near California’s southern border during a news conference in San Diego on Monday, pointing to what state officials described as the results of a years-long enforcement effort.
Newsom spoke at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, where he outlined the outcomes of a five-year push to curb the flow of illicit drugs entering the U.S. through the southern border.
According to the governor, roughly 50.6 million fentanyl pills have been seized during that period, with an estimated street value of about $506 million. He also said the California Highway Patrol made approximately 11,700 arrests tied to drug seizure operations.
Newsom credited the California National Guard and the CHP for their role in preventing illicit drugs from reaching communities across the state.
“This is what the National Guard should be doing,” he said. “These are the kinds of partnerships that make sense. We were very proud in 2019 to support our Border Patrol as it relates to efforts to relieve Border Patrol from doing a lot of this work, so that they can have the opportunity to do the work they are hired to do.”
The governor also criticized the Trump administration and recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, referencing immigration raids carried out last year at restaurants in San Diego’s South Park neighborhood and in Los Angeles.
Related: California Senate Passes ‘No Kings Act,’ Allowing Lawsuits Against ICE
Newsom argued that President Donald Trump temporarily halted the National Guard’s border work when troops were redeployed to respond to protests linked to immigration raids.
“We saw a lot of crowd control, a lot of suppression technique; of course, we saw the federalization of National Guard, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted with taxpayer money,” he added.
