OPINION:
President Biden and his Democrats have done so much for the murderous Mexican cartels.
And it promises to be the gift that keeps giving as masses of immigrants cross the border illegally owing money to the rapacious drug pushers turned brutal human smugglers.
Some blue cities and states are providing benefits to aliens that promise to indirectly fund the cartels, which raked in $13 billion in human trafficking fees in 2021. At that rate, the total take by now would be $40 billion.
It is Mr. Biden’s crazy and irresponsible strategy to rely on the cartels that control the Mexican side of the southern border to send us anyone they want. Our Border Patrol dutifully processes the invasion. It’s 10 million illegals at this point, including gang members, drug dealers, and child sex and slave traffickers.
It’s the Democrats’ cynical plan — public safety be damned. Take the migrants who survived cartel brutality, drownings and vehicle smothering and inject them into the election voting pipeline as soon as possible.
The Biden financial gift helps cartels produce more deadly fentanyl and heroin and export more operations into the U.S. It’s a deadly gambit for Americans and migrants. Border Patrol agents have told Congress that cartel bosses unleash threats, beatings, rapes and murders if migrants dare to leave their routes to escape payment.
“The other day, we had two people wash up to our shores, and they had no identification on them, but we’re thinking they were migrants that went down there without permission,” Chief Patrol Agent Joel Martinez of the Laredo, Texas, section told the House Homeland Security Committee. “One of them had his head halfway blown off, and the other one was shot between the eyes.”
With a smuggling monopoly, the cartels typically charge an alien $8,000 to $12,000.
The subplot is that those without sufficient upfront cash are sternly impressed with the obligation to pay the full amount once in the United States. Cartel thugs have a good record of collecting. A migrant thief in New York City said he stole because he needed to repay his handlers. Migrants are affixed with wristbands complete with client numbers. They tell the checkpoint bosses what they paid and what they owe.
“Many migrants make only a down payment up front of about $500, and agree to work off the rest when they get to their destination,” said Jessica M. Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
In an online analysis, Ms. Vaughan said some families pay by lending a child to another migrant, which guarantees that person, as a supposed parent, immediate release inside the U.S.
“The remainder is typically paid through debt bondage accomplished by wage garnishment, fees for housing and food, and other forms of exploitation and outright threats and extortion,” Ms. Vaughan said.
House committee staff asked Chief Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley if aliens arrive here in debt. She said: “I have heard from different debriefs from our intelligence agents that many of the migrants that do hire human smugglers at times haven’t even paid their debt yet until they find a job in the United States to pay that debt. I have heard that from different briefs.”
Democrats’ benefit programs promise to help the flow of cash to cartels from inside our country.
New York City on March 25 began handing out prepaid debit cards to migrants in a program pegged to cost, at first, $53 million, the New York Post reported.
California has a buffet of benefits for illegal immigrants, including cash assistance for older adults, storm recovery payments and free medical care.
California has lost a net 400,000 residents since 2019. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is inducing illegal immigrants, no matter who they are, to settle in his state so as not to lose a congressional seat through the U.S. Census.
A Democratic-controlled Minnesota House panel approved a bill to create automatic cash payments to everyone, including illegal immigrants.
The Center for Immigration Studies said in December that 59% of households headed by illegal immigrants tap into the country’s $900 billion federal welfare pot. This CIS estimate is based on the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation.
Another CIS study concluded that the annual taxpayer cost of taking care of millions of illegal immigrants will reach $451 billion.
That number was incorporated into a report from the House Homeland Security Committee majority Republicans.
“Illegal immigration has a profound impact on programs intended to provide financial aid or services exclusively for low-income Americans,” a committee report stated. “Although most illegal aliens are ineligible for these taxpayer-funded benefits, many still receive them.”
The point is, a portion of this welfare comes in cash payments that will surely find their way back to the drug cartels.
“Now nobody crosses without paying the cartels,” testified Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin of the Tucson, Arizona, sector. “So the cartels determine when people cross, how many people cross at a time, all of that. It’s all controlled by them.”
The smuggling fees are not always calculated in money.
“It’s very common that female migrants are raped during the process,” testified San Diego Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke. “It’s also very difficult to be able to get them to talk. Most of them believe it’s just part of the payment as they go up. It’s unfortunately very regular within the population.”
Providing benefits that help migrants pay off the cartels is probably not the worst thing Democrats could do to degrade our cities.
The trifecta of “sanctuary cities” to protect alien criminals, defunding the police and lax prosecution created nightmares for stores, subway riders, homeowners, pedestrians and the police themselves, who, unfortunately, work for people who hate them.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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