The data also confirms that US interdictions of illicit arms shipments are highly concentrated in a small number of states and regions (see Table 6).[1] Nearly 90 per cent of Caribbean-bound shipments were seized in southern Florida—an area known as a hotbed of trafficking to Haiti, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean islands. Similarly, the vast majority of shipments bound for Mexico were seized in Texas and Arizona. Both findings are consistent with previous research on US-based arms trafficking to the Caribbean and Latin America.[2]
The data suggests that Florida is also a hub for trafficking to Latin America other than Mexico. Seventy-three per cent of shipments to this group of countries were seized from ports linked to the CBP Miami field office, which include Miami Seaport and Miami International Airport. The Houston area was next with 13 per cent, followed by southern California.
Seizures in the interior of the United States were rare. Only four per cent of the 2,278 interdicted shipments to Latin America and the Caribbean were seized in states other than those on the southern border. Seizures in ports linked to the Chicago CBP office were the most numerous, but this office covers 41 ports in 12 states.[3] Dividing the 62 seizures linked to this office by the number of states and years studied yields an average of less than one seizure per state per year.
It is clear from the data that comparatively few illicit shipments of firearms to the Caribbean and Latin America are interdicted in states other than those along the US southern border. Less clear is why. Given the ease with which traffickers could ship packages abroad from any post office or fast parcel service office in the country, why is most of this activity concentrated along the southern border? Definitively answering this question is beyond the scope of this short Situation Update, but demographics and regional differences in gun laws are likely major factors. ‘People with ties to the Caribbean and Latin America [are] mostly tied to those places such as Houston, New York and Miami’, explained a Home Security and Investigations official, ‘and cartels and [other] criminal organizations tend to recruit traffickers from people that they know’ (US ICE, 2024). This fact, along with the comparative ease with which traffickers can obtain firearms in some southern US states, helps to explain—but not fully—the apparent concentration of trafficking along the southern border. A definitive explanation requires additional data and analysis.
[1] Note that the state where the shipment was interdicted is not necessarily the state from where the items were initially shipped.
[2] See US ATF (2024, pp. 15–21).
[3] In contrast, only five ports are linked to the Miami field office, ten to the Laredo office, and ten to the Tucson office.
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