Puerto Rico becomes key drug smuggling route as Mexico border tightens

Encompassed in vibrantly-hued cerulean water with sandy beaches drying up to a tropical coast with year-round sunshine and ocean breeze swaying palm trees lies the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where Homeland Security wages the border crackdown that doesn’t make any headlines. 

“We received new enhancements when the big beautiful bill was approved. And we’re looking forward to bring additional resources to just work everything,” Rebecca González-Ramos, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, told Fox News Digital. 

“The smuggling loads have gone down drastically since President Trump took over, and we’re being stronger [with] immigration enforcement in the island,” she continued, before citing that new funding has allowed the HSI to address a previously “high vacancy rate” through various recruitment initiatives. 

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Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in charge, Rebecca González-Ramos, tells Fox News how operations have been impacted under the big beautiful bill. 

“We don’t only work immigration enforcement, but we also investigate transnational organizations that are behind narcotic smuggling and human smuggling, and money laundering,” González-Ramos, who made history as the first Puerto Rican woman selected as agent in charge to lead the HSI, added. 

She also touched on the island of enchantment’s proximity to Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and how that location in the Caribbean combined with the isle’s U.S. territory status makes Puerto Rico an increasingly popular route for smugglers to target – a reality exacerbated by the increased security measures along the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“Once you get to Puerto Rico, you’re one flight away from getting wherever you want to go, because you’re already in a domestic part of the United States… You can either stay on the island or you can get to mainland pretty easy. So that’s why the Caribbean route, for many of them, it’s easier,” González-Ramos said. 

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After President Trump’s big beautiful bill was passed, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico’s Homeland Security sector was empowered to improve their operations and manpower, resulting in an increased ability to seize human and drug smuggling on the island. 

“The Mexico border being closed and [the new] strong enforcement there has not only opened the Caribbean for human smuggling, but it also opened it for drug smuggling,” she continued.  

“We see now a larger fentanyl presence in the island in regards to Mexican organizations moving to the Dominican Republic and to other countries to find different routes for their narcotics to go up to the mainland,” the special agent added. 

When asked about how renewed funding under the Trump Administration and enabled immigration measures have impacted the local migrant population and their activity on the island, González-Ramos cited that most of their investigations have uncovered the involvement of “individuals from foreign countries.”

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“Those foreigners are in charge of the organizations, and they’re in charge of transporting the narcotics to the U.S… I’m not saying every foreigner is a threat, but there’s lots of foreigners that can be deadly threats to the United States,” she continued. “The only way that we can protect our country is by controlling who comes into our country and who leaves our country… People forget about the safety issues on national security, and they don’t see foreigners as the threat that they can be.”

The special agent added, “[People] need to remember that we’re federal law enforcement officers, and our mission is to protect the United States – and that’s what we’re doing.”

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