ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: Yes. Since you engaged the President on it.
THE PRESIDENT: That's fantastic. That's very nice. I'll have to remember that.
ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: The thing I think is key to highlight is we're going to be getting better in the coming months, across all of this. We've trained 2,500 canines. We have new technology going into place in the southwest border. We're improving the advanced electronic data. And we've issued a challenge prize to industry to come up with a better way to inspect mail packages coming into our facilities, to see if we can detect these drugs without opening all of the million packages in commerce.
I'll be going to Huntington, West Virginia, with Senator Capito and Senator Manchin on July 8th to see the community-level impact, the law enforcement partnerships, and to hear from them on what we can do better at the federal level.
And then, lastly, I'll just say, Mr. President, this is my sixth meeting in the West Wing with either you and/or with First Lady on this issue. I know you've had many more. But we're going to maintain our focus at DHS reflecting your focus on this key priority. And thank you, Kellyanne, for your leadership.
THE PRESIDENT: And what about the southern border, as it relates to drugs coming through?
ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: Yeah, so we have both the dual problem: vehicles at our ports of entry and people crossing between ports of entry. And the investments we're making in the wall, between ports, is going to help dramatically. And we're also buying a lot of technology so we can see in trucks and all those personally-owned vehicles - a huge investment that you advocated for in the FY19 budget. We're deploying that technology now.
THE PRESIDENT: How is the wall coming along?
ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: Coming along aggressively. We built two miles last week. We're up to about two miles a week right now, so extending that capability across key sectors.
THE PRESIDENT: And you'll have, by the end of next week - next year - how much do you think you'll have built?
ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: By the end of next year, over 400 miles, in partnership with DOD.
THE PRESIDENT: Over 400 miles, right?
ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: That's correct.
THE PRESIDENT: And we have to kick and scream for every inch because the Democrats just will not give us what we need. In fact, I think we're going to be very close to 500 miles by the end of the year, which - it'll be great. Okay? It'll have a huge impact. That's fantastic. Thank you. Good job.
ACTING SECRETARY MCALEENAN: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Good job.
MS. CONWAY: Mr. President, after two years of investigations, the DOJ and HHS have generated $3.3 billion in opioid fraud takedowns. We have acting Administrator of the DEA Uttam Dhillon here today to tell us about that and more.
Uttam.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR DHILLON: Mr. President, Mrs. Trump, DEA has made great progress attacking the opioid crisis through its regulatory and enforcement functions. And I'll just take a moment to discuss a couple of relevant cases.
So, on the regulatory front: Since 2016, DEA has reduced manufacturers' opioid quotas - that is, the amount of opioids DEA authorizes to be produced - by 47 percent. So this has significantly decreased the amount of addictive opioids available (inaudible) for diversion, for people to become addicted to, to overdose on.
Kellyanne already mentioned our National Prescription Drug Takeback Day - the records we've set. The last Prescription Takeback Day in April, we had over 6,000 collection sites - the highest amount ever. And that's - we're thankful to our state and local and tribal law enforcement partners who have helped us with that.
We've also emergency scheduled fentanyl analogues. This is very important because drug trafficking organizations are very flexible and they change the composition of fentanyl so that it's not illegal. So we emergency scheduled it so fentanyl and all of its analogues are illegal. That is going to expire next year, but we are working with Congress to permanently schedule all fentanyl analogues.
On the law enforcement front, we're working with our global law enforcement partners to attack the fentanyl crisis, to attack fentanyl labs where they arise. We're working with our state and local partners to seize drugs. Since 2017, we've seized more than 20,000 kilograms of heroin and over 6,700 kilograms of fentanyl.
We're also attacking drug trafficking on the Internet. We're seeing a lot of drugs being sold over the Internet now, over the Dark Web. Recently, in March, working with the FBI and other federal law enforcement partners, we took down 50 dark-net accounts and arrested 61 individuals selling drugs on the Internet.
And most recently, also in April, DEA is continuing to hold accountable pharmaceutical distributors who DEA regulates. For the first time ever, in April, two executives of one of the top pharmaceutical distributors in the U.S. were criminally charged for unlawfully distributing Oxycodone and fentanyl. The company that they worked for has already admitted liability and has paid a $20 million fine.
And finally, Mr. President, DEA remains laser-focused on Mexican drug trafficking organizations - the ones who are bringing fentanyl and other drugs and poisoning our citizens. And we appreciate all of your support.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you want to name them terrorist organization or some designation that would give you additional power?
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR DHILLON: No, sir. I think we have all the authority we need. We just need the cooperation of our various foreign governments to attack them more effectively, and we're working to gain that. Director Carroll talked about our efforts with China, and we're working with other countries to be as effective as possible attacking these.
THE PRESIDENT: And Mexico is going to be much different now, too. I think Mexico is going to start hitting them much harder.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR DHILLON: That would be very helpful, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay? Let me know, okay?
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR DHILLON: All right.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR DHILLON: Thank you.
MS. CONWAY: Mr. President, Mrs. Trump, one of the cruel ironies of these drugs pouring into our communities is that they're coming through our southern border and through our U.S. mail system.
And so, as we know, the 21st century drug traffickers are using low-volume, high-potency fentanyl in our own mailing - tiny, tiny little amount in packages. So, today, I'm very happy to have USPIS Director Barksdale to give us an update on some of the progress that we have and some of the challenges that lie ahead.
DIRECTOR BARKSDALE: Thank you. First, thank you, Mr. President, First Lady, and Ms. Conway, for having us here today. As you know - they may not know - the Postal Inspection Service is the law enforcement branch of the Postal Service. We work very hard to instill confidence in U.S. mail, and basically to protect the American public.
One of my highest priorities, as the Chief Postal Inspector right now, is your issue of opioids, particularly as they flow through the mail system. So I want to thank you for your support on this initiative.
As Mrs. Conway stated, your 2018 (inaudible) of the opioid initiative was the catalyst for us to facilitate greater interagency working relationship with all of my colleagues here. So we've been leveraging our partnerships.
Since that time, we have actually placed postal inspectors with DEA, Customs and Border Patrol, and at the Office of National Drug and Control Policy. Our partnerships allow us to better interdict synthetic opioids in the U.S., through the mail system. And we're also beginning to work closely with our local law enforcement partners.
We're still employing our traditional law enforcement, but we've also moved to more of a 21st century attack. We've launched a cyber and analytics unit to help us better forecast and target international packages. And we're also - as Director Dhillon has mentioned - we do a lot of work now on the dark web, targeting Internet sales.
So, over the past couple of years, we have achieved a significant increase in the amount of domestic and international opioid seizures - more than five times we seized this year than we've done four to five years ago.
