U.S. sees large rise in border seizures of eggs, while fentanyl rate falls

With egg prices soaring due to the bird flu outbreak, border officials say they're catching more people attempting to bring eggs into the United States illegally. In fact, sharp increases in egg seizures are outpacing border officials' interceptions of deadly fentanyl.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said this week that seizures of raw eggs have risen by 48% at entry points along the northern and southern borders, compared to last year.

CBP agents have been especially busy at some ports of entry: "The San Diego Field Office has seen a 158% increase in egg interceptions" since the last fiscal year ended in September, the agency said in late February. 

By comparison, the CBP's latest statistics show a sustained drop in interceptions of fentanyl, the dangerous opioid frequently cited by the Trump administration as a reason to stiffen U.S. borders and impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Seizures of fentanyl have fallen since last October.

The CBP reported 63 "seizure events" involving fentanyl in February, compared to 95 one year earlier and over 100 in the same period of both 2022 and 2023. In terms of both the number of interceptions and the weight of the seized drugs, such incidents are now at the lowest monthly levels seen in at least three years.

U.S. drug overdose deaths have also fallen, dropping to 84,076 last October (the most recent data available) after reaching a peak of 114,664 in August 2023, according to predicted provisional counts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To a large extent, those cases involve fentanyl, a notoriously potent synthetic drug that in 2018 became the drug most often linked to deadly overdoses.

The nation's bird flu outbreak is another story. The U.S. poultry industry has been ravaged by the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 and the culling efforts to contain the disease. More than 168 million birds have been affected since early 2022, according to the CDC, a figure comprising commercial poultry, backyard poultry and hobbyists' flocks.

The impact has been particularly hard on egg-producing farms, leading to higher egg prices — a scenario worsened by the massive scale at which many U.S. producers operate.

With large complexes holding more than a million birds each, "it takes fewer egg-laying operations being affected by HPAI to drive up the price of eggs and egg products," Amy Hagerman, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University who specializes in agricultural economics, previously told NPR.

Shortages and high prices are seen as motivating people's attempts to sneak eggs into the U.S. The CBP says its agents have carried out 5,572 egg product seizures so far this fiscal year, reflecting data as of March 1. The agency reported 15,955 seizures in fiscal year 2024 and 16,541 in fiscal year 2023 — sharp increases after 10,604 interceptions in 2022, the first year of the avian flu outbreak in the U.S.

The Agriculture Department is trying to bring in more eggs through legal means. The agency says it has reached deals with Turkey and South Korea to import eggs to the U.S., for instance. And Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said last week that similar deals were on the way.

"We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term," Rollins said, predicting that the additional supply would be significant enough to help bring egg prices down.

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