Mark Dannels is sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, which runs up against 83 miles of the Mexican border. Dannels told the Washington Examiner in his 36 years as a law enforcement official, the suspension of nonessential travel coupled with the Border Patrol’s immediately returning all illegal crossers “is the best deterrent we’ve had on this border” to drug smuggling.

“With the COVID-19, what we’re seeing is things have started to slow down,” said Sheriff Jim Skinner of Collin County, Texas. In Skinner’s county northeast of Dallas, deputies have seen a decrease in smuggling-related stops, an indication that fewer loads of drugs are being transported to his region because less is coming over the border.