Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is gravely concerned about the southern border, laying the blame of illegal immigration, and drug and human trafficking at the feet of Democrat policies.
Having visited the southern border on multiple occasions, Mr. Cruz said, “if you haven’t seen it firsthand, you can’t understand what’s happening.” On a midnight tour at the edge of the Rio Grande with Border Patrol and other members of Congress, he’s witnessed “dozens of cartel members, screaming across the river and taunting in Spanish, ‘you can’t stop us,’” he said.
Unfortunately, he admitted, they are correct. “The cartels have 100 percent operational control over our southern border,” he told The Epoch Times.
“Nobody crosses the border without paying the cartels,” he said. “If you try to cross the border without paying the cartels, they'll kill you.”
“In 2018, the Mexican drug cartels made roughly $500 million from human trafficking,” he added. “Last, the cartels made over $13 billon from human trafficking.”
For the cartels, Mr. Cruz said, “the very best thing to happen is Joe Biden becoming president.” According to him, “Joe Biden and open border Democrats have transformed the Mexican drug cartels into international multi-billion dollar empires.” All the while, he said, “the people of Mexico are victims of these cartels who have become the most powerful force in the nation with tens of billions of dollars behind them.”
“Mexican drug cartels are vicious criminals and murderers,” he said. “They’re not viewing the people being trafficked into the country, not as human beings, but as nothing more than cargo.”
As people are being trafficked into the United States, Mr. Cruz said that “if someone falls sick or falls behind, they are left to die.” Texas farmers and ranchers have shown him “photograph and after photograph of dead bodies found on their property.” He described the bodies as “elderly people, toddlers, or pregnant women abandoned by the cartels to die in the heat because they can’t keep up.”
There’s a reason President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are not visiting the southern border, he said. “If they visited the border, reporters would follow with TV cameras and the American people would realize what’s really happening down here.”
The Biden administration says it seeks to create a more humane immigration system abandoned by the Trump administration. Officials have repeatedly called on Congress to act to reform outdated immigration laws. Meanwhile, the White House has toughened some border rules barring entry to illegal immigrants from certain countries in Central America and created new pathways for legal immigration.
Republicans, however, criticize Mr. Biden’s policies as too lax, pointing to record numbers of illegal immigrant crossings at the southern border and cities failing to cope with the influx of illegal immigrants.
A Dangerous Spiral
Despite what he describes as little support from the White House, Sen. Cruz commends the work of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in the fight against illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. “The men and women of the Border Patrol are American heroes. They are patriots, and they love this country.”“Unfortunately, morale has never been remotely as low as it is right now,” he added. “You can imagine how difficult it is to work in a harsh environment where you’re risking your life to deal with vicious criminals, drug traffickers, and human traffickers.”
“Apprehending these people is doing little,” Mr. Cruz said, “because [Border Patrol’s] political superiors are allowing these people to be brought in, then turned around and let go to do it all over again the very next day at times.”
Sen. Cruz is thankful that Border Patrol agents continue to work under the current administration. “They’re being demonized and undermined by political apparatchiks in the Biden administration,” he added.
