As comprehensive immigration reform winds its way through Congress, The Center for Investigative Reporting is releasing findings from our deep look into which drugs are crossing the 2,000-mile border that separates the United States from Mexico.

We analyzed the 128,169 seizures made from January 2005 to early October 2011 by the U.S. Border Patrol at checkpoints and other spots near the border and by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at ports of entry.

We found:

• Total marijuana seizures: 113,664 (nearly 89 percent of all seizures)
• Total cocaine seizures: 9,505
• Total methamphetamine seizures: 4,618
• Total heroin seizures: 1,352
• Total seizures of other drugs: 3,803

(Note: We know you’re noticing these add up to more than 128,169 seizures. Some seizures involved more than one type of drug.)

If you poke through the map you’ll notice that each drug has its own interesting storylines of geography and development over time, but there were two obvious standout stories: stations with lots of big marijuana busts, and stations with lots of very small marijuana busts.

Lots of big marijuana busts

Here are the Border Patrol stations with large marijuana seizures (notice they’re mostly in Arizona): 

Station	Marijuana seizures	Weight seized (in pounds)	Median weight seized (in pounds)
Nogales Station, Ariz.	6,864	1,464,390	144.7
Ajo Station, Ariz.	3,510	1,294,258	277.0
Tucson Station, Ariz.	3,442	805,021	194.6
Casa Grande Station, Ariz.	3,195	1,019,125	246.2
Sonoita Station, Ariz.	2,665	762,293	251.8
Rio Grande City Station, Texas	1,706	976,627	421.6
Naco Station, Ariz.	1,310	198,149	109.5
Lordsburg Station, N.M.	1,256	264,152	197.8
Laredo South Station, Texas	835	174,928	163.7
Eagle Pass Station, Texas	632	128,421	164.0

Lots of little marijuana busts

Here are the Border Patrol stations with many small marijuana seizures: 

Station	Marijuana seizures	Weight seized (in pounds)	Median weight seized (in ounces)
Wellton Station, Ariz.	8,938	126,124	0.14
Sierra Blanca Station, Texas	5,076	163,386	0.72
Yuma Station, Ariz.	2,571	141,725	0.3
Campo Station, Calif.	1,506	111,178	0.45
Alamogordo Station, N.M.	1,024	40,599	0.64
Blythe Station, Calif.	753	8,029	0.2
San Clemente Station, Calif.	591	24,134	0.27

So where did this data come from?

Using internal data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection through Freedom of Information Act requests, CIR’s news applications developer, Michael Corey, created an interactive map and data API to show the amount of drugs seized by the U.S. Border Patrol and at ports of entry between January 2005 and early October 2011.

We wanted a detailed geographic breakdown of drug seizures along the border, but the agency’s first response was limited to seizure totals aggregated over large areas – not useful for our purposes. We wanted data on each bust, so we appealed.

Four months or so later, we received more than 80,000 rows of data on individual drug busts made by the U.S. Border Patrol, which often operates in remote areas inside the United States between formal border crossings.

For each Border Patrol seizure, we have information on how much of each drug was seized and which Border Patrol station was responsible, along with the citizenship status of anyone detained. Read our story here about citizenship.

We also got additional data (nearly 50,000 rows) with more limited geographical information from the folks who oversee the nation’s ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations. 

So now that you know how we crunched the numbers, check out our interactive map of drug seizures along the U.S.-Mexico border. Tweet us at @CIRonline or post below in comments about what kind of trends or patterns you’re seeing in the data.

For more homeland and national security coverage, visit Crossing the Line and follow reporters Andrew Becker at @ABeckerCIR and G.W. Schulz at @GWSchulzCIR.

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