Customs and Border Protection authorities have had more than 3,000 encounters with egg smugglers in the first two months of the year compared to 413 seizures involving Fentanyl, according to new data from the Customs and Border Protection agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

Authorities have also seized more than 9,000 poultry products in the first two months of 2025, the reports say.

The number of eggs captured during these interceptions is unclear.  Fentanyl seizures on the American border this year resulted in confiscation of 6,184 pounds of the potentially lethal drug, a decrease of 50 percent over the same time last year. 

President Trump has threatened tariffs on Canada over Fentanyl crossing the porous border, much to the consternation of Canadians officials.

But attempts to suggest egg smuggling is a bigger issue than Fentanyl scramble the facts. Most egg seizures occur when individuals voluntarily declare the items in their lunchbags when asked at the border. 

“There have been very few cases of people purposefully evading the inspection process/failing to declare the product. When that happens a $300 civil penalty is applied, and the eggs are seized,” a spokesman for the border patrol told Snopes.

The heightened vigilance toward agriculture inspections coincides with the drastic rise in egg prices due to farmers in every state being forced to cull 168 million chickens since the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak began in January 2022. 

With eggs in short supply, the nation’s agriculture chief, Brooke Rollins, laid out plans last week for America to import eggs from South Korea and Turkey to ease the soaring prices. Other nations may also join the clutch. 

“We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term. So not insignificant, but significant enough to help continue to bring the prices down for right now,” Ms. Rollins told reporters on Friday. “And then when our chicken populations are repopulated, and we’ve got a full egg-laying industry going again, hopefully in a couple of months, we then shift back to our internal egg-layers and moving those eggs out onto the shelf.”

America has decreased its egg exports by 8 percent during the shortage. The Agriculture Department announced it will spend $100 million to fund vaccines and therapeutics so that birds who get sick don’t have to be slaughtered. 

Egg prices have decreased since their January high to $3.27 per dozen last week with the Agriculture Department reporting that stocks of large shell eggs are up 7 percent from the previous week. Even with the best laid plans, however, a spike is likely to occur in anticipation of the Easter holiday, which Ms. Rollins called the “Egg Super Bowl.”