Mexican drug cartels are allegedly exploiting the southern border’s vulnerabilities, shifting their focus from narcotics to the more lucrative business of human trafficking amidst changing border policies.
Following the Biden administration’s policy changes, which included ending the separation of children from their families and allowing asylum seekers to remain in the country, notorious cartels like the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas have reportedly increased human trafficking across the southern border.
An anonymous source near the border told the DailyMail, “The cartels have realized that under Biden there is serious money to be made from people trafficking without any of the distribution issues you face with narcotics. People are the new dope.”
Jaeson Jones, a retired captain from the Texas Department of Public Safety, contends that Mexican drug cartels have a tight grip on the border. He claims that these cartels employ spies called “halcones” or hawks to monitor activity on both the Texas and Mexico sides of the border.
Jones, who no longer has access to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s information, believes that the cartels pose a significant safety threat at the border.
He stated, “I’m going to be very frank with you: when you’re down there, the cartel knows you are there. They are watching you as soon as you leave the highway, feeding information back to Mexico. They control everything on both sides of that river and communicate back and forth daily on encrypted radios.”
Jones recently shared a video with Republican lawmakers, allegedly showing cartel members transporting a line of migrants across the Rio Grande. He explained the value of different migrants to the cartels, with Mexican citizens being worth $2,500, Venezuelans, Guatemalans, or Hondurans at $3,000, Chinese at $5,000, and Middle Eastern or Russian individuals at $9,000.
The United States Customs and Border Protection agency confirmed a significant increase in migrants during the last months of the Trump presidency.
In January 2021, the number of migrants seeking a better life at the border had doubled compared to January 2020. The first full month of the Biden administration, February, saw 100,441 migrants seeking asylum or a better life across the border.
Under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, migrants had to apply for asylum in Mexico at the nearest port of entry. A source told the Daily Mail that cartels have taken advantage of the influx of unaccompanied minors at the border.
The source explained, “They know for a fact the big groups will get stopped, but they use them as decoys so the single adults, the criminals, the drugs can come over elsewhere. There have been rumors out of Mexico that some of the gangs even stashed migrants away until Biden took office as they knew it would be easier to milk the system.”
Source: AWM
