CBP's fiscal year ended September 30, which means the annual enforcement totals are due in the coming weeks. The final FY2026 figures are not out yet, but the monthly releases through August already show a year that looks very different from the last few. Here is what the public data says so far, where the caveats are, and which numbers are worth watching when the full-year report lands.
Encounters: A Historically Low Start
CBP recorded 91,603 nationwide encounters in the first quarter of FY2026 (October through December 2025), compared with 392,196 in the same quarter a year earlier, a drop of roughly 76 percent and the lowest start to a fiscal year on record. Through August, cumulative nationwide enforcement encounters stood at 348,866: 238,748 handled by the Office of Field Operations at ports of entry and 110,118 by U.S. Border Patrol between them. August alone saw 10,939 nationwide apprehensions, of which 8,870 were on the Southwest border and 563 on the Northern border.
Drugs: Fewer People, More Product at the Ports
While crossings fell, drug seizures at ports of entry climbed. CBP reported February 2026 as its highest single month of drug seizures since October 2021, at 79,609 pounds. In the first six months of the fiscal year, officers at ports of entry seized about 152,000 pounds of methamphetamine, more than in all of FY2025, and over 28,000 pounds of cocaine. CBP also reported more than 100 million lethal doses of fentanyl seized at Southwest border ports of entry in the first seven months of the year, a figure that excludes seizures by Border Patrol and other agencies.
Why the Mix Is Shifting
One trend analysts keep pointing to is a move from fentanyl pills to powder, since powder carries more doses by weight. That matters operationally: the same volume of concealment space moves more product, and detection depends more on non-intrusive inspection and canine teams than on spotting bulky loads. It also means pounds seized and doses seized can move in different directions, so comparing years requires checking which unit is being reported.
A record seizure month can mean more drugs are moving, better detection, or a shift in smuggling toward ports where inspection is concentrated. The data alone cannot separate these. Treat every headline total as an enforcement outcome, not a direct count of what crossed the border.
What to Watch When the Final Report Lands
Four things are worth checking in the full-year release. First, whether total drug seizure weight and fentanyl doses tell the same story or diverge. Second, how the split between port-of-entry and between-port seizures looks, since the first-half numbers were port-heavy. Third, whether the low encounter levels held through the summer months or crept back up. Fourth, the cash and counterfeit-goods lines, which often reveal the financial and trade side of the same networks and get less coverage than drug totals.
A note on sourcing: most of these figures come from CBP's own monthly releases and statements by the administration, which frame the results favorably. Independent analysts and journalists often add context on methodology, and we link to original sources in our live feed so you can read both. You can follow the full-year numbers as they publish on the CBP enforcement statistics page, and track related incidents in real time on the BorderTrend live feed.