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EXCLUSIVE: GOP Sens Urge Trump Admin To Restart Fentanyl, Drug Seizure Effort Biden Shuttered

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Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Ted Cruz of Texas are urging President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to restart drug interdiction efforts in the nation’s airports and transportation facilities.

The GOP senators sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche Monday requesting the DOJ reinstate Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) searches as part of the agencies’ Travel Interdiction Program, which the Biden administration killed in November 2024, citing civil rights concerns. Blackburn and Cruz argue the program should be reinstated due to its past success in seizing drugs through consensual searches and argue the program aligns with Trump’s broader effort to crack down on fentanyl, according to the letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“While it is entirely unacceptable to ever violate the constitutional rights of passengers or engage in any kind of discrimination, and the DEA should work to address the issues identified in the Department of Justice’s OIG report, narcotics interdiction efforts should not be halted altogether,” Blackburn and Cruz wrote. “Prohibiting DEA agents and task force officers from conducting these critical interdiction efforts in transit hubs will only allow for higher quantities of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and other narcotics to come into our country through our transit hubs and onto our streets.”

The Biden DOJ halted the program at mass transportation facilities following inspector General Michael Horowitz findings that the DEA’s transportation interdiction practices did not align with the agency’s policies on consensual searches. Horowitz argued the DEA’s drug interdiction program created “potentially significant operational and legal risks.”

“[I]n the absence of critical controls, such as adequate policies, guidance, training and data collection, the DEA is creating substantial risks that DEA Special Agents and Task Force Officers will conduct these activities improperly; impose unwarranted burdens on, and violate the legal rights of, innocent travelers; imperil the Department’s asset forfeiture and seizure activities; and waste law enforcement resources on ineffective interdiction actions,” Horowitz wrote in a Nov. 21 press release.

Horowitz specifically singled out the DEA for failing to complete paperwork for consensual searches and suspending required training on drug interdiction. Under the drug interdiction program, DEA agents were allowed to ask travelers’ consent to speak with them and, if deemed necessary, ask for consent to search their belongings.

A DEA agent appeared to violate a traveler’s consent during a request to search an individual’s belongings at the Cincinnati, Ohio airport in July 2024.

Blackburn and Cruz argue that the DEA’s transportation interdiction efforts’ success is indisputable, citing narcotics seizure data at Nashville International Airport and Chicago’s Midway International Airport as a result of the program.

“This critical program led to numerous arrests, millions of dollars of drug proceeds and the interdiction of thousands of kilos of narcotics,” the GOP senators wrote. “Allowing for this critical interdiction program to continue at our nation’s airports and other transit hubs will continue his good work to rid America of the poison of fentanyl and  other deadly narcotics.”

The Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation to crack down on fentanyl-related substances on March 14.