[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BIDEN AND MAYORKAS' OPEN BORDER: ADVANCING CARTEL CRIME IN AMERICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 19, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-25
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-482 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee, Chairman
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi,
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Ranking Member
Michael Guest, Mississippi Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Dan Bishop, North Carolina Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida Eric Swalwell, California
August Pfluger, Texas J. Luis Correa, California
Andrew R. Garbarino, New York Troy A. Carter, Louisiana
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Tony Gonzales, Texas Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island
Nick LaLota, New York Glenn Ivey, Maryland
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Anthony D'Esposito, New York Robert Garcia, California
Laurel M. Lee, Florida Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Morgan Luttrell, Texas Robert Menendez, New Jersey
Dale W. Strong, Alabama Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Dina Titus, Nevada
Elijah Crane, Arizona
Stephen Siao, Staff Director
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
Natalie Nixon, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable Mark E. Green, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Tennessee, and Chairman, Committee of Homeland
Security....................................................... 1
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
Witnesses
Mr. Jaeson Jones, Private Citizen, Former Captain of Intelligence
and Counter-Terrorism, Texas Department of Public Safety:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
Ms. Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for
Immigration Studies:
Oral Statement................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 13
Mr. Derek S. Maltz, Private Citizen, Former Special Agent In
Charge, Special Operations Division, Drug Enforcement
Administration:
Oral Statement................................................. 22
Prepared Statement............................................. 24
Ms. Vanda Felbab-Brown, PhD, Director, Initiative on Non-State
Armed Actors, The Brookings Institution:
Oral Statement................................................. 37
Prepared Statement............................................. 38
For the Record
The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California:
Press Release.................................................. 58
The Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Maryland:
Article, The Washington Post, July 14, 2023.................... 75
Article, July 12, 2023......................................... 76
The Honorable Elijah Crane, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Arizona:
The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States
Taxpayers--2023 Cost Study................................... 95
BIDEN AND MAYORKAS' OPEN BORDER: ADVANCING CARTEL CRIME IN AMERICA
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Wednesday, July 19, 2023
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m., in
room 310, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Mark Green
[Chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Green, McCaul, Higgins, Bishop,
Gimenez, Garbarino, Greene, Gonzales, LaLota, Ezell,
D'Esposito, Lee, Strong, Brecheen, Crane, Thompson, Jackson
Lee, Correa, Carter, Thanedar, Magaziner, Ivey, Goldman,
Garcia, Ramirez, Menendez, and Titus.
Chairman Green. The Committee on Homeland Security will
come to order.
Without objection, the Chair may declare the committee in
recess at any point.
The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on
President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas' open border policies
and how they have advanced cartel crime in America.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
The Southwest Border is wide open and the evidence is
clear. More than 5.5 million encounters, more than 1.5 million
known gotaways since fiscal year 2021. Nearly 380,000
encounters of unaccompanied minors, a record number of fentanyl
poisonings in the United States, largely driven by drugs
flooding across our Southwest Border. The crisis is a direct
result of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' dereliction of
duty. This committee's interim Phase One report is being
published later today and makes all of this clear. Today's
hearing and subsequent hearings will examine the costs and the
consequences of these policies.
Now, before I get to the subject of today's hearing, I want
to briefly talk about some of those numbers, because I am sure
we are in for a few days of some unjustified celebration about
what they mean. Keep a few things in mind. Every number that
you hear the other side of the aisle talking about is still a
number far above crisis levels. Even by the measure of
President Obama's former DHS Secretary. We are still averaging
more than 3,000 Border Patrol apprehensions a day. Jeh Johnson
once said that 1,000 overwhelms the system and is a crisis. We
are also seeing the number of inadmissible aliens arriving at
the ports of entry continuing to skyrocket, jumping to more
than 45,000 in June. Encounters at the ports this fiscal year
already exceed last year's by more than 100,000. Last June,
they were around 15,000 and 10,000 the year before that. Why
the change? Well, because tens of thousands of inadmissible
aliens are taking advantage of Mayorkas' new parole programs
and his illegitimate CBP One policy, accepting his offer of no-
questions-asked release into the United States. More than
170,000 people have used the CBP One app to schedule an
appointment since January alone--170,000. The OFO numbers
aren't even being released by the administration. Everyone in
this room knows these individuals have no lawful basis to enter
the country. Everyone also knows that Mayorkas is playing a
massive shell game by shifting encounters between the ports of
entry to the ports of entry, again, not disclosing the OFO
numbers. The outcome, tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens
entering Customs and Border Patrol and being released into the
country. It is the same. Let's just be honest about that simple
fact.
Further, Secretary Mayorkas' insistence that this is legal
is a lie. Mass parole is against the laws passed by previous
Congresses. As we are going to talk about today, the
humanitarian costs of the Secretary's policies are still
horrific. The people flooding to our border, whether between
the ports or at them, are still having to put themselves in the
hands of cartels, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to
get to the border, no matter where they cross. The cartels are
still raking in the profits and migrants are still being
smuggled, trafficked, and abused.
Our focus today is on the Mexican drug cartels and how they
are running wild under Secretary Mayorkas' policies. One thing
is clear, the cartels have seized control of our border. These
organizations are the most vicious, evil organizations in the
Western Hemisphere. What you will hear today from our witnesses
will lay that out in eye-opening detail. As you listen, these
groups are whom Mayorkas has turned our border over to.
What is unprecedented is the level of control these evil
organizations now exert at both our Southwest Border and in the
interior of our country. The boldness with which they operate
in open defiance of law enforcement and the profits they are
raking in, both Americans as well as migrants are suffering
from their wrath. It is virtually impossible to cross the
Southwest Border without first paying the cartels. People are
killed simply for trying to do so.
While Secretary Mayorkas' policies have pulled thousands of
Border Patrol agents off the line to process and release these
aliens into the interior as quickly as possible, this is not
the work they signed up to do. The former chief of the Border
Patrol recently told us has made many agents feel like
smugglers themselves. Their words, not ours. Cartels purposely
overwhelm Border Patrol agents with illegal crossers in one
area as a distraction so they can smuggle other aliens or drugs
across in the areas just vacated by those agents. Amazingly,
Secretary Mayorkas admitted to the Senate under oath in March
that he was not aware of this strategy. Meanwhile, his attorney
general did know the tactic used by the cartels. Unbelievable.
Business is so good that the cartels have devised a complex
system for the massive number of people trying to illegally
cross the Southwest Border. For instance, cartels use colored
wristbands, as I am showing here, to inventory those who are
attempting to cross. Secretary Mayorkas told the Senate in the
same hearing he was unfamiliar with these wristbands too.
The violence and atrocities are not just being felt along
the border. Our American communities throughout the country are
suffering as well. A lot of the violence can often be traced
back to the cartels because they often subcontract their mayhem
to gangs that effectively function as the cartels national
distribution network. Per a recent New York Post headline,
``Honduran Migrants Working For the Mexican Cartels brazenly
took over San Francisco's drug market thanks to lax policies.''
Another outlet reported in February that the cartels have
started operating, ``on a very large scale'' in Montana,
hundreds of miles from the border. Drugs and the violence
associated with them are engulfing communities across our
country, and it can all be tracked back to the cartels.
The tidal wave of human smuggling and trafficking has led
to an increased number of car crashes on our streets, putting
law enforcement, innocent Americans, and the migrants
themselves at risk. One sheriff told of us his department
arrested 169 human smugglers in 2021 and is on pace to arrest
more than 900 this year. Another sheriff said his county deals
with 3 to 4 chases per day involving groups of 20 people or
more. The cartels are recruiting American teenagers to drive
for them, implicating our youth in these horrendous crimes.
Meanwhile, innocent Americans, like Maria and Emilia Tambunga,
have been killed in crashes by those smuggling illegal aliens
on our streets and highways. Transnational gangs like MS-13,
whose motto is kill, rape, control, are also taking advantage.
A senior Border Patrol agent has said that gang members attempt
to evade arrest by exploiting the influx of migrants attempting
to enter our country. These gangs work closely with the cartels
to support operations on both sides of the border. According to
ICE, 40 percent of MS-13 members they arrest arrived in the
United States as unaccompanied alien children. MS-13 also
forces women and girls into sex trafficking to make money for
the gang.
Cartels have made a record amount of money over the last 2
years. In 2021 alone, the cartels made an estimated $13 billion
just from human trafficking and smuggling. Then there is the
fentanyl. It costs as little as $.10 to produce a fake
prescription pill laced with fentanyl, which can be sold for
$10 to $30. Ten kilos of fentanyl is worth about $20 million,
but only costs about $50,000 to produce. Every dollar the
cartels rake in comes at the cost of an American life or
livelihood. There were more than 109,000 drug deaths in 2022,
107,000 in 2021 alone, many of them from fentanyl. The cartels
are continuing to push fentanyl into our country in record
amounts, destroying our communities one family at a time.
I am sure we will hear today the same tired talking points
that ``Most fentanyl is seized at our ports of entry''. But a
couple of things are worth noting. The majority of fentanyl
that is seized has come through the ports of entry, but by
definition, that is what is apprehended. Cartels know there is
a higher risk of getting caught at the ports of entry because
our border isn't secure. We don't know how much cartels are
using unguarded entry points to smuggle drugs. My friends on
the other side of the aisle won't tell you that while CBP
reports the majority of drugs like fentanyl are seized at the
ports, they have also said they believe they only catch 5 to 10
percent of what is coming through either at or between the
ports. So that puts it into perspective. Finally, the amount of
fentanyl being seized between the ports is increasing. In
March, seizures were up 100 percent from the previous year,
according to former Chief Raul Ortiz. That is just what is
being caught.
As I said earlier, migrants are also victims of cartel
atrocities. Once individuals are smuggled into the United
States, the cartels often continue to extort and use them.
According to Mayorkas' own department, there has been an
increase in ``alternative forms of payment in exchange for
passage, including migrants being required to participate in
smuggling controlled substances or other illicit items across
the border or to work off those debts through criminal activity
after they arrive in the United States.'' As many as 60 percent
of unaccompanied minors are kidnapped and exploited by the
cartels. Other migrants are sexually abused and assaulted. One
victim told the New York Times, ``you have to pay with your
body.'' Some are even forced to allow their children to be
abused. I can't imagine anything worse.
Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden's policies have
encouraged record numbers of people to make the journey to the
Southwest Border. This has represented a historic business
opportunity for the cartels, who make thousands of dollars on
every person they smuggle into our country. Their business
model continues to work because instead of enforcing the laws
written by this body or removing or detaining those who have no
valid claim to enter, Mayorkas' DHS is flashing the neon sign
open by releasing millions of inadmissible aliens into the
United States. Millions of people are willing to bet they will
win the lottery if they make it to the border under this
administration's policies and it is a winning bet. The cartels
are more than happy to insist. It is no wonder that a majority
of Americans think the cartels now have more control of our
border than the Biden administration--61 percent of America,
according to a poll last fall. With Border Patrol agents so
overwhelmed by the historic flow of illegal immigration on
Mayorkas' watch, the cartels have filled the vacuum.
While Mayorkas has implemented his open borders agenda, his
boss in the White House has utterly failed to put meaningful
pressure on the Mexican government to fight back against the
cartels and deal with the violence and corruption impacting not
just Mexico, but our country as well. The United States is the
most powerful Nation in the world, and yet we do not control
our own sovereign Southwest Border, according to Chief Ortiz.
If that is not evidence of Mayorkas' failures, I don't know
what is.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentleman from
Mississippi, Mr. Thompson, for his opening statement.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, in nearly 2 decades that I have served on
this panel, a panel created in the wake of September 11, 2001
terrorist attack, I have seen this committee come together to
address some of the most important Homeland Security issues
facing our Nation. From supporting the establishment of the
Department of Homeland Security in its early days to
implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and
more recently, enacting significant cybersecurity legislation,
this panel has built a record of bipartisanship in service to
homeland security. But over the past 7 months, the character of
the Homeland Security Committee has fundamentally changed from
a bipartisan solutions-focused committee to a platform for the
most extreme MAGA schemes. To be honest, I am embarrassed for
the Republican Majority wasting the committee's time on so-
called investigations. This entire endeavor is nothing more
than a political stunt hatched in back rooms so extreme MAGA
Republicans can exert power over the Speaker.
Today's hearing is yet another stunt to appease that crowd
who are demanding the impeachment of someone, anyone at all.
That same goes for the sham, ``report'' we are hearing from the
press that Republicans plan to release today. We have been
given no time to review this document, much less offer any
input, but if it is anything like the report Republicans
released immediately before their last hearing, this one will
be rife with errors and full of extreme MAGA rhetoric
masquerading as fact.
Meanwhile, the Republican Majority is squandering the
Homeland Security Committee's time and opportunity to deal with
real work of our committee. In the 7 months since we took our
oath from the 118th Congress, the Republican Majority has
proven itself to be uninterested in legislating and incapable
of serious oversight. Instead of holding oversight hearings
that would strengthen our Nation's security and improve our
Department of Homeland Security authorities to carry out its
complex mission, the Majority is stuck in a Southwest Border
Groundhog Day. The Majority has held a variation of this
hearing 9 times.
But repeating the same hearing over and over again until
extreme MAGA Members get their way is not oversight. Dragging
Border Patrol chiefs away from their job for politicizing
interviews is not oversight. Don't get me wrong, addressing
problems at America's border is a serious task. But oversight
is about following the facts, not going on a fishing expedition
when the facts don't fit an extreme MAGA narrative. The fact is
that the administration plans to address the challenges at our
Southwest Border and are working under Secretary Mayorkas'
leadership.
Unlawful entries between ports of entry along the Southwest
Border have plummeted since Title 42 was terminated on May 11.
The number of border encounters overall has plunged in that
time, and between May 12 and June 2, DHS repatriated more than
38,400 non-citizens to more than 80 countries. The Biden
administration has also taken unprecedented steps to combat the
fentanyl crisis through a whole-of-Government strategy focusing
on disrupting the illicit fentanyl trade and traffickers'
financial activities and addressing substance use here at home.
Operational Sentinel, which Secretary Mayorkas stood up in
April, has disrupted criminal networks and TCO's financial
assets. Operation Blue Lotus, established at ICE in June, has
surged resources to ports of entry and interior facilities to
combat fentanyl smuggling and break the fentanyl supply chain.
Operation Artemis is leveraging intelligence to target
precursor chemicals, peel presses, and the movement of illicit
fentanyl. Operation Rolling Wave has surged inbound inspections
at the Southwest Border, covering every sector.
As recently-named Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said in a
transcribed interview on May 5, we have a very robust, targeted
enforcement effort where we work hand-in-hand with our
investigative partners to actively disrupt, degrade, and
dismantle those networks and those pipelines that are the
smugglers. He went on to say because we have got more detection
capability, because we have more on the way, we have got the
additional processing coordinators, we are in a better
situation than we were in years past.
President Biden's and Secretary Mayorkas' leadership and
hard work has paid off. Our borders are not open and those
arriving outside lawful pathways are being sent home. The facts
do not support the Republicans' case. You don't impeach the
President or a Cabinet Secretary because you do not like their
policies. You surely do not impeach any officer of the United
States just to placate the most extreme wing of a political
party. It is time to move from this sham impeachment effort and
do your duty as overseers and legislators.
President Biden is fulfilling his duties, Secretary
Mayorkas is doing his job. If the Republican Majority doesn't
like what they are doing or how they are doing it, they should
get off their soapbox and work with Democrats to pass
bipartisan border security and immigration legislation.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
July 19, 2023
In the nearly two decades I have served on this panel--a panel
created in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks--I
have seen this committee come together to address some of the most
important homeland security issues facing our Nation. From supporting
the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security in its early
days, to implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and
more recently enacting significant cybersecurity legislation, this
panel has built a record of bipartisanship in service to homeland
security.
But over the past 7 months, the character of the Homeland Security
Committee has fundamentally changed from a bipartisan, solutions-
focused committee to a platform for the most extreme MAGA schemes. To
be honest, I am embarrassed for the Republican Majority--wasting the
committee's time on this so-called ``investigation.'' This entire
endeavor is nothing more than a political stunt--hatched in back
rooms--so extreme MAGA Republicans can exert power over their speaker.
Today's hearing is yet another stunt to appease that crowd, who are
demanding the impeachment of someone--anyone at all. The same goes for
the sham ``report'' we're hearing from the press that Republicans plan
to release today. We have been given no time to review this document,
much less offer any input. But if it's anything like the ``report''
Republicans released immediately before their last hearing, this one
will be rife with errors and full of extreme MAGA rhetoric masquerading
as fact.
Meanwhile, the Republican Majority is squandering the Homeland
Security Committee's time and opportunity to do the real work of our
committee. In the 7 months since we took our oaths for the 118th
Congress, the Republican Majority has proven itself to be uninterested
in legislating and incapable of serious oversight. Instead of holding
oversight hearings that would strengthen our Nation's security and
improve the Department of Homeland Security's authorities to carry out
its complex mission, the Majority is stuck in a Southwest-Border
Groundhog Day.
The Majority has held a variation on this hearing 9 times. But
repeating the same hearing over and over again until extreme MAGA
Members get their way is not oversight. Dragging Border Patrol Chiefs
away from their jobs for politicized interviews is not oversight. Don't
get me wrong--addressing problems at America's borders is a serious
task, but oversight is about following the facts, not going on a
fishing expedition when the facts don't fit an extreme MAGA narrative.
The fact is that the administration's plans to address the
challenges at our Southwest Border are working. Under Secretary
Mayorkas' leadership, unlawful entries between ports of entry along the
Southwest Border have plummeted since Title 42 was terminated on May
11. The number of border encounters overall has also plunged in that
time. Between May 12 and June 2, DHS repatriated more than 38,400
noncitizens to more than 80 countries.
The Biden administration has also taken unprecedented steps to
combat the fentanyl crisis through a whole-of-Government strategy
focusing on disrupting the illicit fentanyl trade and traffickers'
financial activities and addressing substance use here at home.
Operation Sentinel, which Secretary Mayorkas stood up in April, has
disrupted criminal networks and frozen TCOs' financial assets.
Operation Blue Lotus, established at ICE in June, has surged
resources to ports of entry and interior facilities to combat fentanyl
smuggling and break the fentanyl supply chain.
Operation Artemis is leveraging intelligence to target precursor
chemicals, pill presses, and the movement of illicit fentanyl.
And Operation Rolling Wave has surged inbound inspections at the
Southwest Border, covering every sector.
As recently named Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said in a
transcribed interview on May 5, `` . . . we have a very robust targeted
enforcement effort where we work hand-in-hand with our investigative
partners to actually disrupt, degrade, and dismantle those networks and
those pipelines that are the smugglers.''
He went on to say, ``Because we have gotten more detection
capability, because we have . . . more on the way, we've got the
additional processing coordinators, we are in a better situation than
we were in years past.''
President Biden's and Secretary Mayorkas's leadership and hard work
has paid off. Our borders are not open, and those arriving outside
lawful pathways are being sent home.
The facts do not support the Republicans' case.
You don't impeach the President or a Cabinet Secretary because you
do not like their policies. And you surely do not impeach any officer
of the United States just to placate the most extreme wing of a
political party. It is time to move on from this sham impeachment
effort and do your duty as overseers and legislators. President Biden
is fulfilling his duties. Secretary Mayorkas is doing his job.
If the Republican Majority doesn't like what they are doing or how
they are doing it, they should get off their soapboxes and work with
Democrats to pass bipartisan border security and immigration
legislation.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
Other Members of the committee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
I am pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses
before us today.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Green.Let the record reflect--please have a seat--
let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the
affirmative. Thank you.
Now, to formally introduce our witnesses.
Mr. Jones is an internationally-respected border
intelligence expert with decades of experience on the Southwest
Border. He is a retired captain for the Texas Department of
Public Safety's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division, and
has supervised human intelligence operations in multiple
nations, including leading the longest 24/7 border operation in
Texas history, Operation Secure Texas. He was responsible for
leading multiple investigations targeting Mexican cartel
leadership, and collaborating closely with the U.S.
intelligence community to save numerous lives in both Mexico
and the United States.
Ms. Vaughan is director of policy studies for the Center
for Immigration Studies, a D.C.-based research institute that
examines the impact of immigration on American society and
educates policy makers and opinion leaders on immigration
issues. She has been with the Center since 1992 and her area of
expertise is immigration policy and operations covering topics
such as visa programs, immigration benefits, and immigration
enforcement. Ms. Vaughan is an expert on immigration
enforcement and public safety, having directed a Department of
Justice-funded project on the use of immigration law
enforcement and transnational gang suppression. Prior to
joining the Center, Ms. Vaughan was a foreign service officer
with the State Department, where she served in Belgium,
Trinidad, and Tobago.
Mr. Maltz is a retired special agent for the Drug
Enforcement Administration who dedicated 28 years of his life
to service. He is currently working as a national security and
public safety executive who appears on national news networks
as a subject-matter expert. Mr. Maltz was the special agent in
charge of the United States Department of Justice Special
Operations Division for almost 10 years before he left the
Federal Government. Mr. Maltz also previously held the position
as the chief of the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force, which
is the oldest and largest drug task force.
Ms. Felbab-Brown--did I pronounce that correctly--is a
senior fellow in the Strobe Talbot Center for Security Strategy
and Technology in the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings. She
is the director of the Initiative on Non-State Armed Actors.
She is also the co-director of the Africa Security Initiative
and the Brookings series on opioids, the Opioid Crisis in
America: Domestic and International Dimensions. Previously, she
was the co-director of the Brookings Project Improved Global
Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives Beyond UNGASS 2016, as
well as another Brookings Project Reconstituting Local Orders.
She is an expert on international and internal conflicts and
nontraditional security threats, including insurgency,
organized crime, urban violence, and illicit economies.
I thank the witnesses for being here.
I now recognize Mr. Jones for 5 minutes for an opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF JAESON JONES, PRIVATE CITIZEN, FORMER CAPTAIN OF
INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER-TERRORISM, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC
SAFETY
Mr. Jones. Chairman Green, Ranking Member Thompson, and
distinguished Members of the committee, I am truly honored to
be here in our Nation's Capitol to talk to all of you today
about without question what is the most significant national
security threat and public safety threat to the American people
in this country. That is our common enemy, the Mexican cartels.
After retiring from the Texas Department of Public Safety,
I was so frustrated that what was not getting out about their
evolution I decided to do it publicly myself. So today I am on
your border every other week riding with law enforcement,
trying to illuminate their activities and the impacts to the
American people. What you have not been told is that these are
no longer drug cartels. They have evolved from organized crime
in 2006 into an insurgency in Mexico. I was there on the ground
with people and we were stunned at what we were seeing, 6- to
10-hour gun battles with 50 caliber belt-fed machine guns, 40
millimeter grenade launchers, RPGs and LAWS rockets as they
truly were fighting back against the most elite special forces
in the Mexican government. This was the insurgency.
What brought that about were the Los Zetas. They brought
two forms of discipline. The Los Zetas were former Gafe Special
Forces who came to work for Cartel del Golfo. What they brought
was discipline and tradecraft. From that every other cartel was
then forced to create an enforcement wing and rise to the
occasion or fall. That is why you see such wide variety of
violence, hyper-violence across Mexico today.
In 2010, another major tripwire, and that is when the Zetas
began executing mass migrants and Mexican citizens. You may
remember the 72 migrants killed in San Fernando. I worked that.
The 300 men, women, and children they chopped into pieces, and
then ``Guisoed'', because the Zetas had a saying that you can't
count a body that doesn't exist.
Then the final evolution as we see them today, into a true
parallel government in Mexico. What was the indicator when that
happened? Two thousand fifteen, Operation Jalisco, when their
most elite soldiers went in to get El Mencho, the head of Carta
Jalisco New Generation, and they were shot down. When we went
after Ovidio Guzman in 2019 and the Mexican president of the
country was forced to release him. What you weren't told is
because the Sinaloa cartel, Ivan, the head of the Chapitos, had
so many people's heads at knifepoint, ready to cut them off if
the president did not release him.
This is where Mexico is. So how does that impact you here?
How does it impact Americans today? I am telling you with
everything I am, if we do not designate these cartels as
foreign terrorist organizations or at least get the tools of
national power, the hundred thousand Americans that we are
losing year after year to date is just the beginning. The
cartels will not stop because they can't stop. This is what you
are not told. The U.S. Intelligence Agency should be briefing
you. They do not fear you. They fear their rivals. The reason
they continue to escalate in hyper-violence and in capability
is because if they don't, then their rivals could completely
take them over.
Today, they have evolved again. In February 2021, I broke
this story. This is the adjustment, ladies and gentlemen, from
the smuggling of people by Cartel del Golfo into the
trafficking of men, women, and children. These are wristbands,
the Cartel del Golfo, and each one represents a different alien
smuggling organization who began moving them into country under
debt bondage. We have never seen this before. What I am holding
in my hand before you today, I want to be very clear. This is
America's new slave trade. Now we have moved these people
throughout the country for the best means, but we have sent a
virus of debt bondage across the Nation. I am happy to talk to
you about that as I broke that story in February 2021.
Finally, I want to say to you this, is they will continue
to increase because they have to. Validation to all of you.
Look at fentanyl as a great example. The fentanyl that we're
seizing mostly in the streets now is not regular fentanyl.
They've gone from regular fentanyl to para-fentanyl to cera-
fentanyl, and now introduction of xylazines. You've got four
more xylazines coming on board. Get ready. China, they've
already evolved around them.
The last part of this, I'll say, because I know I'm running
out of time, is that you have to take aggressive action. Texas
has spent $9 billion to fight the cartels, and it's still not
enough. What we need are authorities beyond the law enforcement
capability and the mothers and fathers across this Nation. The
indicator to you that this Government is on the right track to
end this problem in this country is when we designate these
cartels, or at least get the tools of national power and go
after them.
Thank you all for having me today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jones follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jaeson Jones
July 19, 2023
introduction
Chairman Green, Ranking Member Thompson, and distinguished Members
of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak today about a
common enemy we all face and must unite against. This threat represents
the most significant national security and public safety threat to the
American people. It is the threat we face from the Mexican cartels and
Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs).
I am grateful for the opportunity today to share my experience as
someone who had a long and rewarding 24-year career in Texas law
enforcement, retiring as a captain with the Texas Department of Public
Safety's Intelligence & Counter-Terrorism division, commanding the
Texas Rangers Border Security Operation Center (BSOC), which operates
as a cross-border operations center, working closely with U.S.
intelligence agencies, Federal, State, and local law enforcement along
the border region.
During my career, I was assigned to 9 different duty stations
across Texas and on the U.S.-Mexico border in multiple cities,
including El Paso, Brownsville, and Laredo, Texas. I have worked and
led some of the most complex investigations and intelligence collection
against several cartels, including the most hyper-violent at the time,
the Los Zetas. It would be their tradecraft and discipline brought into
the narco-underworld that would cause the rise of the Mexican cartel
evolution from organized crime, into an insurgency, to terrorism, and
ultimately into a parallel government as we see them today.
While today's focus is on the impact of Transnational Criminal
Organizations (TCOs), it is crucial to address the distinction that
exists between TCOs and the Mexican cartels. By comprehending this
distinction, elected leaders can better develop comprehensive
strategies to combat the Mexican cartels and set priorities that will
leverage new authorities for the Homeland Security Enterprise's (HSE)
success to defeat these dark networks.
It is imperative to understand the vast disparity between TCOs and
the Mexican cartels. In South Texas, for example, it is common for law
enforcement to apprehend juveniles almost daily who smuggle people,
drugs, and act as lookouts or halcones (falcons), as they are also
known across the Southwest Border. I have personally witnessed young
juveniles as young as 12 years of age smuggling hundreds of pounds of
narcotics in a stolen vehicle; ultimately, crashing into a residence
after fleeing from law enforcement. There are many instances of
juveniles crossing into the United States overseeing stash houses who
direct the care, custody, and control of dozens of economic migrants
who illegally entered the United States. These activities constitute
the distinction of a TCO.
The Mexican cartels on the other hand control territory, which
stretches far beyond Mexico's borders. The Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel
Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) are Mexico's two largest cartels. Their
activities are no longer isolated to Mexico. These complex dark
networks span the world building relationships with other underworld
networks now impacting nations in every region of the globe.
The Mexican cartel's evolution would also spark mass hyper-violence
upon innocent Mexican citizens and economic migrants seeking a better
life just trying to pass through Mexico. Since 2007, there have been
over 340,000 murders in Mexico with disappearances now exceeding
100,000 people. The cartels have a saying, ``You can't count a body
that doesn't exist.'' Therefore, they have begun mass incineration of
human bodies known as ``Guiso,'' where human remains are cut into
pieces and their remains are cooked to ash.
The cartels leverage what is known as ``Sicario's,'' trained
assassins who operate as enforcers. Today, they employ tens of
thousands of these individuals, including possessing entire enforcement
wings within the organization. What is not well-known publicly is that
many of these sicarios go through basic, intermediate, and advanced
training. Most of the training is conducted by former law enforcement
and special forces operators like Guatemalan Kaibiles, Mexico's elite
Gafe (similar to American Green Berets), and many other countries.
Training is also conducted by known terrorist organizations such as the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) which are designated as a
foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department.
The cartels employ a vast array of military-grade weaponry,
comprising of surface-to-air missiles, vehicle-borne improvised
explosive devices (VBIED), shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons like the
AT4, LAW rockets, RPGs, heavy weapon mounted systems including 50 cal.
belt-fed machine guns, grenade launchers, 40mm grenades, hand grenades,
and fully automatic-machine guns manufactured from around the world.
The majority of these military-grade weapons are purchased through
corruption in armories throughout Central American countries. The
cartels also operate first-, second-, third-, and fourth-generation
armored vehicles as they battle for control of territory. The cartels
over time have learned mobility is life, and with each generation of
armored vehicles, they employ lighter more agile armored vehicles.
The cartels contract globally with long-haul smugglers and their
alien smuggling organizations. They have adjusted from a human
smuggling model over the last 2\1/2\ years, into a human trafficking
model, placing hundreds of thousands of economic migrants into debt
bondage. As an example of this transition, Cartel del Golfo also known
as CDG, which operates along the Texas/Mexico border from Brownsville
to Roma, Texas was so emboldened in February 2021, by the mass
migration of economic migrant's numbers that they began placing
wristbands on men, women, and children to ensure the tax/piso (payment
process) was established. This process created an ongoing payment
model, which first collects the migrant's personal identifying
information (PII) into the cartel's database. This provides the ability
to keep them into debt bondage as their family's personal information
in the country of origin is firmly documented including establishing
the migrants' destination in the United States. This ensures future
payments can be secured in the long term. For the first time in
American history, people both legally and illegally in the United
States are in debt bondage to terrorist/criminal organizations,
operating in a foreign country for years, if not decades to come. This
transition firmly establishes America's new slave trade.
As someone who has documented the cartel's evolution into a
parallel government, led some of the most complex investigations, and
sent critical real-time intelligence supporting precision-led
operations with Mexico's most elite special forces, to both rescue
migrants from mass murder and apprehend leaders with the cartels, I
want to be very clear, the Mexican cartels will not stop, they are
going to have to be stopped. The entire approach for success against
the cartels hinges on new authorities, prioritizing tools of national
power, allowing the use of network theory, and a desperately-needed
departure from the failed law enforcement investigative model.
The Mexican cartels have no choice but to increase their
capabilities. Their fears are driven by territorial disputes and new
advancements by rival cartels that could result in their destruction.
This is the reason for their ever-increasing development of new
tradecraft, technology, and the weaponization of controlled substances.
Examples are the evolution of fentanyl analogs by cartel chemists from
regular fentanyl, into para-fentanyl, then to cera-fentanyl, and the
recent introduction of xylazine (or tranq, as it is referred) and their
increasing appetite for horrific acts of hyper-violence against the
innocent.
The Mexican cartels are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of Americans over the last several years and yet they are
still not designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). There
is not one designated terrorist organization in the world responsible
for killing this many Americans, and yet we still see no action from
the U.S. Government to hold the Mexican government, and the Mexican
cartels, accountable for the deaths of so many Americans.
conclusion
In closing, there is a vast disparity of capabilities between TCOs
and the Mexican cartels. The threats from the Mexican cartels to our
citizens today are unparallel. It is imperative that we marshal our
collective will and direct the full force of our national power to
confront these organizations. The time for half-measures and fragmented
efforts has passed. Now is the moment for decisive and unwavering
action to restore safety and security to our communities. This body
must be committed to the protection of our citizens (your constituents)
as the utmost priority. The future of our great nation depends on our
focus against this common enemy.
To all mothers, fathers, and loved ones who have lost someone to
these cartels, you are not forgotten. It is with steadfast commitment
that I stand before you today, knowing that there can be no appeasement
or reasoning with this evil. This is a good versus evil fight. May
history remember this day as an important moment when our Nation
committed in a resounding decree to end the Mexican cartels, to protect
American citizens, and in doing so, we secure a brighter future for
generations to come.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and I look
forward to taking your questions.
Chairman Green. Thank you.
Ms. Vaughan, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF JESSICA M. VAUGHAN, DIRECTOR OF POLICY STUDIES,
CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Ms. Vaughan. Good afternoon and thank you.
President Biden and Secretary of Mayorkas inherited the
most secure border we've probably ever known. But they
discarded that security in favor of what they want and what
they call a more humane, more equitable system. What they seem
to really want is to normalize illegal immigration.
Their system is far from humane. Plenty of people benefit
from it, to be sure. Employers seeking exploitable workers,
NGO's seeking Government contracts. But the biggest winners are
the criminal cartels who've been raking in huge profits made
possible only because these policies give them an endless
supply of vulnerable customers that they can exploit and abuse,
and hundreds of thousands of them are children. The human cost
of these policies is unconscionable and for some, irreparable,
and indeed most worthy of a hearing.
So the three main elements of the Biden-Mayorkas policies
are the catch-and-release policies for illegal border crossers
that have brought in more than 2 million people since January
2021, the CBP One program which gives out about 1,500
appointments to inadmissible aliens to enter through the ports
of entry, and importantly, the dismantlement of immigration
enforcement in the interior so that there's next to no threat
of removal for the migrants, including those who abscond from
their proceedings, which is the majority. Importantly, so that
the employers and traffickers of these illegal workers can
avoid scrutiny of their hiring practices.
Biden officials have claimed that CBP One policy is a great
success because the illegal migrants no longer have to do
business with the cartels, we should be skeptical of this
claim. First of all, CBP One can only be used from locations in
northern Mexico and the migrants still have to get there. For
most, that still means paying a cartel-approved smuggler. The
CBP One appointment itself turns out to be yet another
opportunity for them to extort the migrants. Of course, the
gotaways and the runners who are the bad guys are still coming
in, as are the unaccompanied minors.
The situation now is nothing to brag about. We've merely
gone from truly catastrophic to very bad. To the extent that
there is a decline in illegal entries is also helped by the
efforts of Texas, of course, to block the most popular crossing
points.
Biden and Mayorkas have been shockingly indifferent to the
consequences of their policies for the migrants whom they are
enticing into the cartel's web. The dangers begin on the
journey with the high risk of robbery, assault, extortion,
injury, illness. As we've discussed, for many, the abuse
continues after they get here. Some people pay a discounted fee
and give up their children for the smugglers to use to give to
other single adults, others agree or are forced to be drug
mules. A large number just make a down payment on the smuggling
fee that's paid off in fear-driven forced labor debt bondage
arrangements that are difficult for them to escape from.
So we now have a thriving market for cartel-involved human
trafficking. According to one source, about one-fourth of the
victims are children. Part of this is because of the policies
of how these kids are handled once they are brought into the
country as unaccompanied minors. The Border Patrol has to turn
them over to the HHS assembly line where the goal is to flip
them over to a sponsor as soon as possible with few questions
asked. Not surprisingly, they end up in domestic servitude,
working illegally at factories, poultry processing plants, on
farms, or in the worst cases, trafficked for sex. These kids
are vulnerable targets for criminal gangs like MS-13 and 18th
Street, many of whom came here through the very same policies
and are looking for new recruits or commodities to make money
for the gang.
Some of the worst cases of this I've ever seen are
happening very close to here, in PG County, Montgomery,
Frederick, Baltimore, Ann Arundel, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince
William County, have all had horrific cases. The cartels are
into the forced labor too, what some have called narco slavery
slavery, not just drug mules, but farm workers on the illegal
marijuana grows in Oregon and California.
These public safety threats come on top of other
significant costs to taxpayers. We have effective tools to
fight back against the cartels directly. But the most obvious
step is to secure the border and control illegal migration, to
deny the cartels the opportunity to make money off the
migration dreams of vulnerable people.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jessica M. Vaughan
July 19, 2023
Thank you, Mr. Green and Mr. Thompson, for the opportunity to
testify today. The mass migration crisis instigated by the Biden
administration's misguided immigration policies has caused incalculable
harm to American communities, to the integrity of our immigration
system, and, tragically, to many of the migrants themselves. While
there are a number of beneficiaries of these policies, including
employers seeking cheap, exploitable workers; NGO's who are awarded
huge contracts to provide services to migrants; and politicians who
welcome the addition of non-citizen constituents to their districts, to
name a few, the biggest winners under the Biden-Mayorkas policies are
the criminal cartels and other transnational criminal organizations who
are reaping profits on a nearly unimaginable scale. Drug trafficking is
big business, and we've witnessed an alarming spike in the most
dangerous drugs like fentanyl, but reportedly in recent years the
cartels actually have been making more money from human smuggling and
trafficking than from drugs. The fiscal and human cost is serious and
enormous. Congress should take certain steps to combat the cartels
specifically, but the most effective action would be to address the
main cause of the problem--the array of policies, unauthorized entry
programs, and legal loopholes that generate the most profitable
customers for the cartels--illegal migrants.
Biden-Mayorkas Policies Set Off Flood of Illegal Migrants; Millions
Released into the United States.--When he took office, President Biden
inherited what many experts considered to be the most secure land
borders in U.S. history, with expanded and improved barriers, updated
technology, and more personnel, all of which was backed up by policies
that deterred migrants from crossing illegally. Yet on his very first
day, President Biden began dismantling these policies and activities
that had largely succeeded in controlling recent waves of illegal
migrants. Within a short time, on the watch of DHS Secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas, that largely secure Southern Border was transformed into a
chaotic, lawless, and dangerous frontier, with cartels and criminal
smuggling organizations orchestrating illegal crossings of migrants
with impunity. The incentive: the understanding that the vast majority
of illegal migrants would promptly be released from Government custody
and transported to their destination (often with Government funds),
despite low expectations that the migrants will comply with immigration
proceedings or ever qualify to remain legally.
The Biden-Mayorkas policies, are built on the concept of increasing
immigration by ``managing'' a much higher level of illegal migration
and laundering the unauthorized entries using parole and work permit-
issuing authority, together with the near-suspension of interior
enforcement. The result is a system that is outrageously lucrative for
the cartels and the smugglers, traffickers, gangs, and other criminal
enterprises involved. Specifically, the Biden administration has
arranged it so that the majority of those who do business with the
smuggling organizations, which necessarily work under arrangements with
the cartels who control the border area, will succeed in gaining entry
to the United States with the opportunity to live and work here for an
indefinite period, without a meaningful threat of removal. Under these
policies, there is a near-endless supply of paying customers willing to
risk working with criminal organizations to seek passage to the border.
These policies include:
1. Terminating construction of physical barriers at the border, and
suspending operation of other tactics that were effective in
deterring illegal entry, such as checkpoints and certain
technology-based detection systems.
2. Directing the Border Patrol to coordinate with Mexican
authorities to permit groups of migrants to cross the border
illegally.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Todd Bensman, Biden DHS Coordinating Illegal Immigration In-
Flows with Mexico (cis.org), Center for Immigration Studies, May 10,
2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Directing the Border Patrol to undermine the border security
enhancements installed by Texas authorities.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Todd Bensman, Dispatch from a Militarized Texas Farm--Where
Biden's Federal Agents Are Sabotaging the State's Desperate Border
Enforcement (cis.org), Center for Immigration Studies, July 13, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Allowing inadmissible migrants to make appointments to be
escorted through the ports of entry for processing and release
into the United States. Those arriving without appointments may
withdraw their applications and subsequently enter with an
appointment.
5. Virtually guaranteed release of families, minors traveling
without parents, and those claiming to be a family or minor.
These categories of illegal migrants, now represent 30 percent
of the current border apprehensions. Little to no vetting is
done to verify claimed family relationships (DNA testing was
recently suspended). Typically, after processing the migrants
are turned over to contractors who provide shelter and arrange
transportation to their destination, where they are told to
check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to receive an
immigration court date. Intake agencies are prohibited from
sharing information on the minors with ICE, and ICE is
prohibited from moving to deport anyone who sponsors a minor.
6. Unaccompanied minors are handed off to the Department of Health
and Human Services, which will house them until a sponsor is
located. Most are released to individuals claiming to be
parents or other relatives, while others are released to
lightly-vetted sponsors. Home studies, background checks, and
financial assessments are rare, and little meaningful follow-up
monitoring is done. The expectation is that any problems will
be handled by State and local authorities.
7. Migrants are encouraged to comply with immigration proceedings
in order to receive a work permit. This benefit may also lead
to qualifying for additional services, including a driver's
license. Their conduct is only lightly monitored to remain in
compliance with the terms of their release.
8. Migrants who do not comply with the conditions of their release
are not considered targets for immigration enforcement. Only
those migrants who commit very serious crimes and serve out
their sentences are considered for removal, and only if the
crimes occurred recently and no other mitigating circumstances
are presented. Tens of thousands of migrants who absconded from
proceedings in the past, or whose cases are now considered low
priority have been closed, eliminating any threat of removal.
9. Besides giving a pass to illegal migrants who don't comply with
release conditions, Mayorkas has directed ICE to refrain
generally from investigating employers who hire unauthorized
workers and from attempting to detect illegal workers who are
using stolen or false identities.
As Border Crossings Rise, So Do Cartel Profits.--Not surprisingly,
the number of illegal border crossers and inadmissible migrants has
exploded, in response to what the migrants call Biden's ``invitacion.''
This has been a boon for the cartel profits; in the last 2 years,
reportedly, the cartels have reaped more revenue from the human
smuggling and trafficking business than they have from drug
trafficking, and have accumulated more wealth than some entire states
in Mexico, reaching sums of as much as $14 billion a year, according to
some experts.
Border Patrol encounters of illegal migrants at the border have
consistently breached 2 million each year since 2021, and as of May of
this year, are already over 2.1 million.
While the number of encounters measures attempted illegal
crossings, the more important metric in the context of this discussion
is the number of inadmissible aliens who are being released into the
country. These are the cartel success stories, and consist of three
categories of unauthorized migrants:
1. Illegal border crossers released after apprehension--Under
Biden-Mayorkas policies, since January 2021 more than 2.2
million inadmissible aliens have been released into the country
after turning themselves over to the Border Patrol or after
apprehension.\3\ This massive catch-and-release program is
operating in defiance of the Immigration and Nationality Act,
which requires the Government to return, remove, or detain all
illegal border crossers, including those express an intent to
make an asylum claim.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Andrew R. Arthur, Decoding CBP's Southwest Border Statistics
for May (cis.org), Center for Immigration Studies, June 26, 2023.
\4\ See Hillel R. Smith, ``The Law of Immigration Detention,''
Congressional Research Service, updated September 1, 2022, IF11343
(Congress.gov) and Andrew R. Arthur, DHS Can't Just Release Illegal
Migrants at the Border (cis.org), Center for Immigration Studies,
October 22, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. ``Gotaways''--Prior to the implementation of Biden-Mayorkas
policies, typically the number of aliens evading apprehension
by the Border Patrol remained just over 100,000 per year.
Beginning in 2021, that figure rose to nearly 400,000
``gotaways,'' and then nearly 600,000 in 2022. So far in 2023,
reportedly 530,000 illegal aliens have evaded capture, for a
total of at least 1.5 million ``gotaways'' entering under the
Biden administration.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Andrew R. Arthur, `Got-Away' Tsunami Is the Best Measure of the
Decline in Border Security Under Biden (cis.org), Center for
Immigration Studies, June 29, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Unauthorized parole programs--In an attempt to lessen scenes of
chaos at the southern land border, Mayorkas recently launched a
controversial program to funnel inadmissible migrants to land
and air ports of entry and away from illegal land crossings.
Migrants make an appointment in advance using a phone app known
as CBP One, and are allowed to enter through the land ports on
the day of their appointment. In addition, those who show up at
legal crossings without a visa and without a CBP One
appointment are allowed to withdraw and enter later using the
app to make an appointment, usually bypassing the waiting
lists, which can be as long as 5 weeks for other users.
Initially set at 1,000 per day on May 12 (following the
rescission of Title 42), now there are 1,450 appointments
available every day at the land ports. In addition, according
to our sources, every day more than 1,000 additional migrants
who are citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua
reportedly are being permitted to fly directly to certain U.S.
airports, where immigration officials allow entry without a
visa. The estimated total number of unauthorized parolees is
250,000 since January.
New Policies Fail to Make Illegal Migration Safer.--Biden officials
have claimed that the policies and programs implemented after the
termination of pandemic expulsions have created new ``legal'' pathways
for migrants so that they do not need to do business with the cartels.
In remarks at a meeting with Mexico's President Lopez Obrador and
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Biden said:
``People have to make it through jungles and a long journey to the
border. And many are victimized, not only in terms of what they have to
pay but victimized physically in other ways. And so, we're trying to
make it easier for people to get here, opening up the capacity to get
here, but not have them go through that godawful process.''\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Joseph R. Biden, Remarks by President Biden, Prime Minister
Trudeau, and President Lopez Obrador in Joint Press Conference/The
White House, January 10, 2023.
Biden officials now claim (without releasing the official
statistics to confirm) that illegal crossings have declined by 50
percent or more in the last month. However, there are reasons to be
skeptical that the new programs actually have solved the border
problems, especially the human smuggling and trafficking problems and
the involvement of the cartels. First, since the CBP One app can only
be used from locations in central and northern Mexico, migrants still
need to get to that area from other parts of Mexico, from Central
America, and all the other departure points around the globe. Typically
that requires hiring a smuggler who specializes in a particular market,
and work and shares profits with the cartels that control the border
and passage through other countries.
Notably, U.S. authorities had to shut down the CBP One processing
in the city of Laredo for 2 weeks because migrants with appointments
were being extorted for amounts in the range of $500 to $13,000.
Eventually they reinstated the program, even as the risk of extortion
continues. Upon re-opening appointments U.S. officials said that to
avoid being extorted in Laredo, migrants should consider applying from
other Mexican cities.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Daina Beth Solomon and Laura Gottesdiener, Exclusive: U.S.
restarts asylum appointments at Mexico border town despite extortion
threat/Reuters, June 28, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even with the new policies, the numbers of illegal crossers is
still unusually high, averaging over 3,500 daily encounters with Border
Patrol, and essentially has progressed only from ``catastrophic'' to
``very bad.''
In particular, the number of family units and minors does not seem
to be abating. According to reports, despite the threats of
consequences for illegal entry, many migrants are abandoning the CBP
One process in favor of illegal crossings because there is a 5-week
waiting period to enter once an appointment is made, and they are still
likely to be released into the United States anyway--so there is little
advantage to using CBP One. Minors, the category most vulnerable to
abuse, are still crossing in very high numbers, with nearly 10,000
apprehended in May 2023.
Moreover, the cartels, along with other bad actors, still need to
move their products and operatives across the border for their illicit
business purposes, and they do not want to risk detection by using the
pathways established by Mayorkas. They continue to exploit the weak
links in physical border security to move drugs, gang members, single
males, and anyone else who is likely to be flagged and removed if
caught.
The Border Patrol and Texas authorities continue to announce
significant apprehensions and encounters of illegal crossers, this
month, even in the brutal heat of summer. This week, Mexican
authorities intercepted least two tractor trailers loaded with hundreds
of migrants.
To the extent that there is any improvement at all, it is most
likely due to efforts by the State of Texas to physically block the
entry points, such as by patrolling on the Rio Grande river, installing
razor wire and buoys, and arresting some of those who make it across in
areas away from where the Border Patrol is processing illegal migrants.
Lax Border Policies Expose Migrants to Abuse by Cartels.--President
Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, and their allies maintain that the arrival
of 4 million illegal border crossers in less than 3 years (on top of
several million legal immigrants and new temporary workers in the same
time frame) is a necessary humanitarian response and good for the
country as well. This claim is perhaps naive, but strikes me more as
shockingly indifferent to the plight of the large number of migrants
who are abused, exploited, and even trafficked after surrendering
themselves, their family members, and sometimes their life savings to
the criminal organizations who are actually in charge of this system.
The dangers begin on the journey to the United States. Depending on
the country of departure, the migrants travel by plane, boat, bus,
train, and on foot, usually traversing multiple countries in which they
have to be stashed and staged in houses or fleabag hotels, or camp in
the wilderness and on the streets of various towns they pass through.
Bribes have to be paid to authorities, gangs or cartels on the way, and
even if Mexico is the only foreign country they cross, they usually are
subjected to threats, robbery, assault, kidnapping, extortion, illness,
injury, and more. An unknown number don't survive the journey to the
U.S. border.
Depending on the place of origin, the smuggling fees run in the
thousands of dollars. Some migrants will accept discounts on the fees
by giving up their children to cross with other adults traveling alone.
Others will agree or are forced to be drug mules, perhaps in exchange
for a lower fee.
Many migrants agree to a contract stipulating that after making a
down payment on the smuggling fee, after they arrive at their pre-
arranged destination in the United States, they will work in a job and
live in housing arranged by the smugglers. Their smuggling debt and
numerous other ``expenses'' will be deducted from their (low) wages, in
the classic debt bondage arrangement, now possible on a much larger
scale because of the Biden-Mayorkas policies.
The trafficking and debt bondage incidents involving children are
especially horrifying. In 2021, about 27 percent of the cases reported
to human trafficking hot lines Nation-wide involved minors. From
January 2021 to May 2023 approximately 380,000 unaccompanied minors
have been taken into custody by the Border Patrol. Under the current
rules, after a cursory screening, the Border Patrol must turn over the
minors to the Department of Health and Human services, which, under
Biden policies, rushes to place the child with a sponsor. These
placements occur without any of the precautions established by State
child welfare agencies, and too often put the minors in abusive
situations.
This irresponsible process was the subject of a Judiciary hearing
several months ago, in which expert witnesses described how countless
children have ended up in sex trafficking, forced labor, domestic
servitude, or are released to the custody of gang members, predators,
or illegal employment in violation of child labor laws.\8\ The
trafficking and other abuses also have been chronicled in numerous
media investigative reports. One of the most informative accounts was
the report of a grand jury empaneled in Florida in 2021 to investigate
the problem. It observed:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing, The Biden Border
Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children/House Judiciary
Committee Republicans, April 26, 2023.
``Some `children' are not children at all, but full-grown predatory
adults; some are already gang members or criminal actors; others are
coerced into prostitution or sexual slavery; some are recycled to be
used as human visas by criminal organizations; some are consigned to
relatives who funnel them into sweatshops to pay off the debt
accumulated by their trek to this country; some flee their sponsors and
return to their country of origin; some are abandoned by their so-
called families and become wards of the dependency system, the criminal
justice system, or disappear altogether. Meanwhile ORR's efforts and
resources are less directed at preventing or remedying any of these
maladies, and instead appear fully focused on maximizing the number of
children they can process, heedless of the downstream consequences to
either the children or the communities into which they are
jettisoned.''\9\
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\9\ Florida Grand Jury report, p. 4.
Biden officials have been clear that they are more interested in
moving UACs through the system as quickly as possible than they are
concerned about the safety and well-being of the minors in their
custody. In a shocking video that was widely circulated earlier this
year at just about the time of one of the news media reports on the
burgeoning problem of UAC labor trafficking, HHS Secretary Xavier
Becerra urged HHS staff to further accelerate the processing of the
kids, saying, ``This is not the way you do an assembly line.''\10\
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\10\ White House promises crackdown on migrant child labor
(usatoday.com).
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Typically, the traffickers promise the young migrants and their
families that they can go to school or work in the United States, and
instead lure them into indentured servitude, peonage, sex trafficking,
extortion, or demand that they work for the smugglers to pay off their
debts to the traffickers. In other cases, desperate, unsuspecting, or
opportunistic parents will arrange for their child to cross with a
trafficker to work in the United States at a farm or factory, or worse.
In one notorious case implicating an egg farm in Ohio:
`` . . . The defendants and their associates recruited workers from
Guatemala, some as young as 14 or 15 years old, falsely promising them
good jobs and a chance to attend school in the United States. The
defendants then smuggled and transported the workers to a trailer park
in Marion, Ohio, where they ordered them to live in dilapidated
trailers and to work at physically demanding jobs at Trillium Farms for
up to 12 hours a day for minimal amounts of money. The work included
cleaning chicken coops, loading and unloading crates of chickens, de-
beaking chickens and vaccinating chickens.''\11\
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\11\ U.S. Department of Justice, ``Two Defendants Plead Guilty to
Forced Labor Scheme that Exploited Guatemalan Migrants at Ohio Egg
Farms,'' August 25, 2015.
In 2021, the Federal Government reportedly stopped releasing
unaccompanied minors in at least two locations--Enterprise, Ala. and
Woodburn, Ore.--due to concerns about organized labor trafficking. The
Department of Justice and two other Federal agencies launched
investigations based on suspicious clusters of arriving minors: ``Some
of these situations appear to involve dozens of unaccompanied minors
all being released to the same sponsor and then exploited for labor in
poultry processing or similar industries without access to education,''
according to an email from a Justice official. So far, one couple in
northern Alabama has been convicted of money laundering and conspiracy
to transport illegal aliens unlawfully, and the other investigations
apparently are still in progress.\12\
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\12\ U.S. Probes Trafficking of Teen Migrants for Poultry-Plant
Work (bloomberglaw.com).
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The establishment and resurgence of the transnational gang MS-13 in
the Washington DC-Maryland-Virginia area, whose members are largely
illegal aliens, many of whom originally arrived as unaccompanied
minors, has brought an increase in cases of brutal sex trafficking in
the area. The gang preys on young teenage girls who run away from
shelters, foster care, or broken homes:
``In the United States, victims of MS-13 tend to be Latino immigrant
girls or girls from the Northern Triangle countries who came into the
country as unaccompanied minors . . . HHS places minors either in
foster care, with family or a sponsor . . . MS-13 preys on the
vulnerability of the unaccompanied minors; some have previously
suffered sexual abuse either in their home country or during the trip
north; others lack a community and do not speak English. Members of MS-
13 seek out the vulnerable young girls using violence and other
coercive tactics to intimidate the girl into having sex for money to
help financially support the gang. Runaways are also appealing to the
MS-13. Family problems, transitions from foster care and economic
problems are some of the reasons that unaccompanied minors run away
from their homes. Many of the unaccompanied minors may have experienced
sexual abuse, exploitation, or physical abuse in their home countries
or during their migration to the United States and even more suffer
from poverty and lack of a stable social network. These are all factors
that make young girls more susceptible to human trafficking.''\13\
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\13\ The Connection between the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Human
Trafficking (humantraffickingsearch.org).
Recent typical cases occurring in the area resulted in the
prosecution of 11 MS-13 gang members for sex trafficking, assault, and
other charges related to the prostitution of a 13-year-old and 16-year-
old runaways. ICE officials have stated that an estimated 40 percent of
MS-13 members they arrest originally arrived as UACs.
It is not only minors who end up being trafficked; the cartel-run
system sets up adults for abuse as well. In 2021, Texas and New York
had the largest number of cases reported on trafficking hot lines, but
the places with the highest number of cases per capita were New Mexico,
Mississippi, Georgia, Nevada and Washington, DC. Trafficking for
commercialized sex is a serious problem, although the type of human
trafficking that is most likely to involve illegal border crossers is
forced labor trafficking. The most common sectors for this form of
trafficking are agriculture/farm work and domestic work.
There are no comprehensive national statistics to quantify the true
scale of trafficking or even recent trends, but the prevalence of new
cases indicates that the criminal exploitation of workers is thriving
under the Biden-Mayorkas border policies. For example, in April 2023,
three Brazilian men were criminally charged for targeting and smuggling
Brazilians over the Southern Border, for a fee of $18,000-22,000. The
illegal migrants were put to work in restaurants owned by the
traffickers in Woburn, Mass., and had to share apartments owned or
controlled by the defendants, who withheld wages from the victims in
order to pay off their smuggling debts and forced them to work long
hours, often performing difficult manual labor, while subjecting them
to threats of serious harm--including financial harm, violence, and
deportation to prevent them from quitting and demanding better pay and
working conditions. The defendants carefully monitored changes in
immigration policies at the border, coached the migrants on how to
answer questions from authorities, and offered to give fake documents
to the victims to support bogus asylum claims.\14\
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\14\ Department of Justice, District of Massachusetts/Three
Indicted for Forced Labor and One Charged with Labor Trafficking at
Woburn Restaurants/United States Department of Justice, April 4, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While some of the labor trafficking involves relatively small-time
cruel and unscrupulous employers, the cartels are directly involved in
employing an unknown, large number of trafficked illegal migrants on
illegal marijuana farms in Oregon and California, and probably other
States, in a form of forced labor known as ``narco-slavery.'' One
illegal operation using trafficked workers was discovered after the
body of a dead worker was discovered at a gas station, and
investigators traced the matter back to the farm, uncovering other
problems:
``Once Maria began working on the [illegal pot] farm, armed guards
prevented her from leaving until the harvest was over. She said there
were no bathrooms or beds for the more than 200 workers there. She
slept on the floor or on an air mattress.
``In the summer heat, she and others were forced to work from 7 a.m. to
10 p.m., Maria said. The guards would determine when they would wake
up, eat and sleep.''\15\
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\15\ Allie Weintraub et al, `Narco slaves': Migrant workers face
abuse on Oregon's cartel-run, illegal pot farms--ABC News, December 15,
2022.
Authorities sometimes refer to these operations, which usually are
run by either the Sinaloa or Jalisco (CJNG) cartels, as ``blood
cannabis'' producers. They typically are found in remote areas of the
country and produce marijuana to sell all over the United States. The
illegal cartel-run farms are places of squalor and violence, where
female employees in particular frequently are sadistically abused and
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
other workers are exploited:
``A man from Spain said he was victimized on a grow in Josephine County
[Ore.], to the west of Jackson County and bordering California. The man
[said] he was promised $120,000 but was paid $300.
``When the worker demanded his earnings, the growers shot at him. He
ran, hopped into his car and sped off as a truck followed him. He hid
out in the woods for a couple of days before escaping . . .
``He said other workers are made to work 16 or more hours without a
break and sometimes without a meal. And women are sometimes sexually
assaulted.
``They come from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Honduras, El
Salvador, Venezuela, and Colombia and have often spent all of their
money to get to the cannabis farms. Workers on illegal cannabis grows
like this one in Jackson County, Oregon, are sometimes lured to the
region with promises of hotel rooms and six-figure salaries. They often
live in squalor without a bed or clean water.''\16\
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\16\ Beth Warren, Cartel-backed pot grows linked to California,
Oregon human trafficking (usatoday.com), June 18, 2023.
Lax administration of the legal visa programs also has allowed
trafficking to flourish, particularly in the H-2A temporary farmworker,
H-2B seasonal temporary worker, and J-1 exchange worker categories, but
this trafficking is most frequently run by labor contractors and other
staffing companies.
All of these problems are facilitated by the moratorium on worksite
enforcement imposed by Mayorkas. Immigration enforcement at the
worksite is the obvious place to detect instances of exploitative
employment of migrants, but the Biden administration has shifted most
work on these cases to the Department of Labor, which should also be
involved, but lacks some of the authorities of DHS agencies, especially
concerning non-citizens, who are responsible for at least half of the
forced labor trafficking violations that have been prosecuted in
Federal court each year, according to the Human Trafficking
Institute.\17\
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\17\ Federal Human Trafficking Report/Human Trafficking Institute.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biden-Mayorkas Policies Expose U.S. Communities to Threats.--The
flood of people to the border brought on by the Biden-Mayorkas policies
has created conditions that make it difficult, and at times impossible,
for border officers to determine the identity, age, citizenship, and
background of those they apprehend. The emphasis is on swift release of
those caught crossing illegally and those seeking entry at the ports of
entry, including those allowed to enter using CBP One. A cursory
biometric and biographic screening is done, but if migrants have not
previously been in the United States, there is little basis for
assessing whether any individual migrant might pose a threat. The few
documents that migrants might bring with them (those not ditched prior
to crossing) are of little use to U.S. authorities.
These careless policies have created scores of new victims in
American communities--all of which were preventable crimes. For
example:
Last month in El Paso, Eddy Jose Ortega Alvarado, a
Venezuelan man who reportedly was allowed to enter using CBP
One on May 20, 2023, has been accused of murdering a Honduran
woman he was staying with in a dwelling that has been
identified as an illegal alien stash house. Border Patrol
agents told the news media that they had run a criminal history
check on Ortega, but with the recent high volume of people to
be processed and very limited access to criminal histories in
other countries, there are ``bad apples'' who make it
through.\18\
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\18\ Dave Burge and Fernie Ortiz, Migrant arrested, charged with
capital murder in death of another migrant/KTSM 9 News, June 5, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a case highlighted by the Florida Grand Jury, a 24-year-
old man made it through Border Patrol screening posing as an
unaccompanied child, and qualified to be placed with a sponsor
in Jacksonville, whom he later murdered.\19\
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\19\ Illegal immigrant who posed as minor while crossing border
charged with murder (nypost.com).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several Venezuelan men who recently arrived in Chicago have
been charged with a variety of crimes, including stabbings and
shoplifting. Some have been arrested multiple times during the
few months since their arrival. The State judge in one case
lamented the lack of information on the men:
``These are individuals who've not been in the country very long.
You're now telling me that they were arrested at Macy's,
committing a felony retail theft. So the court wants some
idea of who is in front of me. Additionally, as the public
defender just indicated, one person has already indicated
he's using another name. So, who are these people? Who are
these individuals?''\20\
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\20\ Venezuelan migrant arrested 3 times since arriving in Chicago
3 weeks ago: prosecutors--CWB Chicago, May 9, 2023 and John Binder,
Sanctuary City Chicago: Migrants Accused of Stabbing, Shoplifting While
Living in Taxpayer-Funded Shelters (breitbart.com), May 18, 2023.
School resource officers around the country are asking the
same questions about some of the students they are observing in
the public schools. Officers I have met have described
disturbing cases of gang infestation and violence in the
schools attributed to newly arrived unaccompanied minors, the
entrapment of recently-arrived girls into sex trafficking, and
kids arriving at school after working the overnight shift at a
poultry processing plant, and more.
Federal agents recently prosecuted members of the MS-13 gang
in Virginia for sex trafficking case, among other crimes. They
recruited a group of girls who had entered as unaccompanied
minors, were placed in a group home in Fairfax, Va, and then
ran away, into the clutches of the gang. The teen victims were
brutally beaten to initiate them into the gang, and then
repeatedly forced to engage in prostitution both to members of
the gang and outsiders. From once court document:
``MINOR 2 was sex trafficked by numerous MS-13 gang members and
associates shortly after she and MINOR 3 ran away from
Shelter Care on August 27, 2018. According to MINOR 2,
MINOR 3 informed her that she would engage in sex in
exchange for money, food, and other things that MINOR 2
needed. During interviews with law enforcement, MINOR 2 and
MINOR 3 both discussed staying at the residence of MOISES
and JOSE ELIAZAR, two brothers who lived together . . . in
Woodbridge, Virginia . . . MINOR 2 informed law enforcement
that multiple men engaged in sex with MINOR 2 in the wooded
area behind MOISES' apartment . . . Geolocation data
obtained during the investigation shows that MINOR 2 was
harbored at multiple locations in Northern Virginia and
Maryland . . . Numerous social media conversations
involving MOISES, GUTIERREZ, and others, show their active
involvement in finding different residences to harbor MINOR
2 for purposes of commercial sex.''\21\
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\21\ Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint and Arrest Warrant
in United States v. MOISES et al, July 31, 2020.
There are reports of several instances of individuals who
had been watchlisted as known or suspected terrorists who still
managed to enter the United States, either as asylum seekers
\22\ or because overwhelmed border officials could not react to
the derogatory information. The latter case was the subject of
a scathing report from the DHS Office of the Inspector
General.\23\
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\22\ Todd Bensman, The Biden Admin Released a Suspected Terrorist
into the United States After He Illegally Crossed the Border (cis.org),
Center for Immigration Studies, March 4, 2022.
\23\ Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector
General, OIG-23-31--CBP Released a Migrant on a Terrorist Watchlist,
and ICE Faced Information Sharing Challenges Planning and Conducting
the Arrest (REDACTED) (cis.org), June 28, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Besides the array of past and future individual criminals who have
been allowed to enter after crossing illegally, either by the design of
the Biden-Mayorkas policies or as ``gotaways'', there is an even more
concerning threat to the public from the cartels and other
transnational criminal organizations that routinely exploit the border
policies for their illicit business purposes. Most are sophisticated
organizations, and the most successful are nimble in adapting to
emerging opportunities, whether in human and drug trafficking across
the U.S. border, or even more complex ways. Not only have they evolved
``horizontally'' to branch out into new ventures, for example getting
involved in human trafficking as well as drug trafficking, in fentanyl
trafficking as well as heroin and marijuana trafficking, and stealing
oil as well as automobiles--they also have shown that they will evolve
``vertically,'' to control every level of production, distribution, and
retail sales of their illicit products.
This vertical evolution presents a very serious threat to American
communities. The Mexican cartels (and numerous other transnational
criminal organizations) have not been content to remain in Mexico; they
already have established operations in the United States. Federal
agencies made more than 300 arrests for Mexican cartel-related crimes
in 2022, according to one analysis.\24\ To manage these operations, the
cartels need to move their people into U.S. communities. This requires
thwarting U.S. immigration controls, which is not difficult at the
moment. Once here, they will try to gain control of the environments in
which they operate, whether through violence or through the corruption
of public officials. Some communities have already experienced such
violence, such as in the case of the illegal marijuana grows in
California and Oregon, or in the case of Goshen, Calif., where in
January 2023, 6 people were executed in an ``early morning massacre''
that authorities described as a likely cartel hit.\25\
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\24\ Andrew Dorn and Steve Joachim, Map: Tracking drug cartel
arrests across the United States (newsnationnow.com), February 16,
2023.
\25\ Stella Chan, Goshen, California shooting: 6 people, including
a baby, were killed in a `cartel-style execution,' sheriff's office
says/CNN, January 17, 2023.
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These public safety threats come on top of the other significant
costs to taxpayers, including the cost of expanded services to the
migrants and lost job opportunities and depressed wages for legal U.S.
workers. For example, Texas has told Federal courts that State
taxpayers have incurred expenditures of hundreds of millions of dollars
a year for medical care, schools, shelter and criminal justice costs
attributed to the illegal migration brought on by the Biden-Mayorkas
policies.
Recommendations.--The Biden administration has implemented policies
that incentivize illegal migration on a massive scale, to the profit of
criminal smugglers and traffickers, even with full knowledge of the
risks that such policies will endanger the safety and well-being of the
migrants. Some supporters of these policies have defended them on the
belief that they are aiding the reunification of families, providing a
safe haven from difficult living environments in their home countries,
and even benefiting U.S. employers. On the contrary, I submit that
there is no possible rationalization for policies that facilitate the
abuse and exploitation of migrants and the endangerment of American
communities on such a scale. There is no possible humanitarian or
economic motive that could justify or make up for the damage that has
been done by the cartels and the smugglers and traffickers who work
with them.
Some suggest that a strong law enforcement agency response to
target the cartels would solve the problems. Certainly that would help,
and these reforms should occur, but such a surgical approach limited to
targeting individual cartels and transnational criminal organizations
will not be enough, even if a few cartels could be eradicated.
As long as the careless and poorly-managed immigration policies of
the Biden administration remain in place, which allow for the near-
unlimited illegal entry of migrants who do not have to establish
admissibility, eligibility, or qualifications in any form, we can
expect that the cartels and other criminal groups will exploit these
policies to their own profit and convenience. If the policies are
reversed, to end the mass catch-and-release of illegal crossers, to end
unauthorized parole entry programs, to return Border Patrol agents to
patrolling the border, to resume enforcement of immigration laws in the
interior--especially at the work place, then it becomes much harder for
the cartels to make a profit off of the migration dreams of vulnerable
people in other countries, and they will find other business
opportunities. To solve the problem, Congress must change the
immigration laws and rein in the executive policies that are
incentivizing the mass illegal migration of both adults and minors.
When we reach the point where migrants understand that there is no
point in entering an agreement with a criminal smuggling organization
or a labor trafficker, or even attempting to illegally join a family
member in the United States, because such illegal entry and employment
will not be tolerated and result in the consequence of being sent home
promptly, then the smugglers and traffickers will have few clients, and
the Government agencies will have a much greater ability to deal with a
far fewer number of exploitation cases.
Many of these reforms would be accomplished by H.R. 2640, the
Border Security and Enforcement Act of 2023, introduced by Mr.
McClintock and Mr. Biggs, which passed the House and is now before the
Senate. Congress should also make use of its appropriations authority
to de-fund the most egregiously damaging programs established by the
Biden administration, including CBP One, other parole programs, the
Mayorkas immigration enforcement prioritization scheme, and migrant
resettlement initiatives that in reality are the final leg of illegal
human smuggling operations. In addition, Congress should appropriate
funds to be awarded to State and local governments to initiate programs
to combat human trafficking, smuggling, and other activities that
involve the cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
Chairman Green. Thank you, Ms. Vaughan.
I now recognize Mr. Maltz for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DEREK S. MALTZ, PRIVATE CITIZEN, FORMER SPECIAL
AGENT IN CHARGE, SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION, DRUG ENFORCEMENT
ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Maltz. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on
this very important topic.
After a 28-year career with DEA, I've been supporting law
enforcement agencies all over the country and I also support
the grieving families that are burying their loved ones on a
daily basis. I believe the safety and security of America must
be a top priority. The current border policies are placing
every American at risk. The Mexican cartels are taking over and
taking advantage of the vulnerabilities at the border, but
they're working with the Chinese transnational criminals at
levels we've never seen in the country. They're operating with
no fear.
The brave men and women in CBP are doing tremendous work,
but they're distracted every day because they're dealing with a
tsunami of migrants coming in from over 150 countries. How can
any reasonable person in America think the current situation at
the border, which is now impacting all of America, is safe and
secure? Makes no sense. Look at the historic number of deaths,
right--I deal with this every day--9,161 dead Americans.
Headline news today, 9 in Cleveland, Ohio. Most ever in a 24-
hours period dead. Last month another public service alert
because there were 5 dead in 12-hour period. This is what's
happening. What about Ray Lewis, the legendary NFL player? What
about this famous actor Robert De Niro's grandson, dead? What
about baby Elijah in Florida with the fentanyl that a mother
mixed in the blender?
Look at the escalating crime in the country. Look at the
known gotaways, 1.5 million that are all over the country. We
don't even know who they are, where they are, what they're
doing here. Look at the 143 migrants have been apprehended this
year at the border. Think about that. There was only 3 in 2020
during the last administration and in the last year. Think of
how many terrorists and criminals are part of the gotaways.
This is common sense. You don't have to be an expert to
understand that. Look at the record number of migrant deaths
from them making treacherous journeys to get here. Baking in
the desert and in the back of tractor trailers and this man is
pulling them off the desert with the sheriffs and stuff on the
ground. Look at the sexual assaults and the rapes and the
migrants on the journey. Remember, depression, anxiety, and
mental illness are on the rise and all of our Americans are
turning to drugs for help. But unfortunately to the illicit
drug supply. Allowing Mexican cartel operatives and
unidentified people from around the world to enter the country
illegally at record levels is enhancing the ability of
criminals to kill Americans.
This is not what the Government should be doing to keep us
safe. You don't have to be a border expert, an immigration
expert to understand that the administration's policies related
to the border are a recipe for disaster. I'm not a MAGA
lunatic, OK. Look at the recent Statement on China made by FBI
Director Wray. Now let's think about it. He said how China is
the most--biggest national security threat to our long-term of
this country. Based on that warning, let's look at the facts.
Already this year, 14,655 Chinese nationals, many of them
military-aged men, are being apprehended on the border. Let's
look deeper. That's 1,540 percent increase from last year and
over a 10,700 percent increase from 2021. So my question to
everyone here, what are they coming here for? Military-aged men
from China? How many are in those gotaways? Remember the
bombing campaign from China continues from the Chinese labs
with the xylazine. This is a tranquilizer for horses. It's
rotting people from the inside out, causing necrosis. Mike
McCaul, thank you sir, because you made this statement and I'll
never forget it. Selling fentanyl to America is a great foreign
policy for China. He's right on point and the man's been around
homeland security issues a long time.
Synthetic drugs made in labs in China and Mexico are record
levels game-changer for the United States. The Chinese
criminals are providing critical money-laundering services
which I can answer questions about. This is a disaster for
America and I'm concerned. It's not a red or a blue issue. It's
a red, white, and blue issue, and every American should care.
So in my view, it's chemical weapons destroying our country
rapidly. One of the biggest obstacles for us law enforcement is
the corrupt, high-level government corruption. We can't rely on
soft-on-crime and corrupt leaders in Mexico to save our kids.
So as far as I know, there's never been a terrorist
organization in the history of America that has killed this
many Americans. The cartels must be dealt with accordingly and
severely for what they're doing to our families and
communities.
Law enforcement's done tremendous work, and my hat goes off
to all of them, saving lives every day. DEA last year 58
million fake pills, 13,000 pounds of fentanyl, 400 million
deadly dosage units taken off the street. Homeland Security
Investigations, CBP during operation Blue Lotus, 8,200 pounds
of fentanyl, 2 months at two POEs. The sad part everyone has to
think about, how much is being produced and how much is already
here. So DEA warns Sinaloa and Jalisco are the biggest threats,
drug threats we've ever seen. So, folks, where's the Operation
Warp Speed COVID-like thing for fentanyl?
Last thing, without border security, we have no country.
Thank you very much.
For the Ranking Member, sorry, we're wasting your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Maltz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Derek S. Maltz
July 19, 2023
Chairman Mark E. Green, Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, and
distinguished Members of the committee, I would like to thank you for
this opportunity to speak today about the catastrophic situation in
America caused by the Mexican Cartels, the open borders and the
escalating fentanyl poisoning crisis. I am grateful for the opportunity
to share my experience and thoughts as America faces complex challenges
with this unprecedented national security and public health disaster. I
had a long rewarding 28-year career as a special agent in the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA). I retired from the DEA in July 2014
but remain actively involved in the private sector supporting law
enforcement agencies around the world as they aggressively target
Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). I'm also very engaged in
supporting families around the country who have lost loved ones to the
devastating substance fentanyl entering America at historic levels.
During the last 10 years of my career, I was the agent in charge of
the DEA's Special Operations Division (SOD) in Northern Virginia. In
that capacity, I ran the SOD operational coordination center with 30
participating agencies, to include representatives from Canada,
Australia, and the United Kingdom. SOD's primary mission is to support
and synchronize the investigative efforts of Federal, State, local, and
international law enforcement agencies. SOD focused substantial
resources on the Mexican cartels since they have been one of the
greatest threats to the United States for several years. SOD was
instrumental in supporting the Mexican government and several U.S.
agencies to capture the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo
Guzman, on two occasions, and coordinating the world-wide
investigations against the cartel. SOD also has a long history of
coordinating the efforts of agencies around the world disrupting and
dismantling major criminal networks.
Unfortunately, the threat of the Mexican cartels has grown
tremendously over the years from drug cartels to TCO's to narco-
terrorists. In my view they remain the greatest daily threat to the
citizens of this country. They have killed more Americans than any
other terrorist organization and the rate of death and destruction
continues to escalate. The cartels control the importation and
distribution of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and deadly fentanyl.
They work closely with Chinese Criminal Networks (CCN) and together
they are destroying communities and families throughout the United
States and are killing record numbers of our future generation.
I remain committed to work with Congress, my colleagues in the
Government agencies and fellow citizens who have lost their loved ones
to the drug crisis to help develop recommendations and solutions to
build more effective approaches to eliminate the current threats. Too
many Americans are dying from fentanyl poisoning and citizens all over
the United States are impacted by the Mexican cartels and the CCN.
It is time to work together and put politics aside. ``The current
unprecedented fentanyl poisoning crisis that's killing our kids at
record levels is not a Red or Blue Issue. It's a Red, White, and Blue
issue. We need all Americans to work together now to save lives.''
We must utilize the best and brightest patriots serving the country
and combine the arsenal of capabilities and authorities to decimate the
cartel's deadly production operations in Mexico. We must simultaneously
dismantle their importation and distribution networks to eliminate the
growing threat to the United States and our citizens. The U.S. agencies
must continue to work together with innovative strategies to shut down
the flow of precursor chemicals shipped to Mexico from China, India,
and other countries around the globe that are used in the production of
dangerous synthetic drugs. The evolving sophisticated money-laundering
schemes offered by the CCN to the cartels must also be shut down.
The U.S.G. must also use all Treasury and economic sanctions to
disrupt the movement of criminal proceeds to the foreign leaders who
run these networks. As the country faces these growing threats,
especially with the involvement of the CCN's and their partnership with
the cartels, law enforcement needs the full support of Congress. This
historic ongoing national security threat requires a true ``whole-of-
America approach.'' While we must continue to treat those with mental
illness and drug addiction, the Mexican cartels and the CCN must be
held accountable for their devastation and damages. They can no longer
operate with impunity, and we need Congress and Government leadership
to step up their efforts with a greater sense of urgency.
President Biden said appropriately on December 15, 2021, while
speaking about his Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions on Foreign
Persons Involved in the Global Illicit Drug Trade,
``trafficking into the United States of illicit drugs, including
fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, is causing the deaths of tens of
thousands of Americans annually, as well as countless more non-fatal
overdoses with their own tragic human toll. Drug cartels, transnational
criminal organizations, and their facilitators are the primary sources
of illicit drugs and precursor chemicals that fuel the current opioid
epidemic, as well as drug-related violence that harms our communities.
I find that international drug trafficking--including the illicit
production, global sale, and widespread distribution of illegal drugs;
the rise of extremely potent drugs such as fentanyl and other synthetic
opioids; as well as the growing role of internet-based drug sales--
constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.''
(Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions on Foreign Persons Involved in
the Global Illicit Drug Trade, 2021)
Based on the President's statement above, and knowing the Mexican
cartels are responsible for shipping record amounts of deadly
substances and sending their operatives into the country from Mexico,
any reasonable person can understand that the current border policies
are enhancing the cartel's ability to operate successfully, contradict
the President's statement, and that the border must be secured to
ensure increased public safety and security in America.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
overview
On July 12, 2023, White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy (ONDCP) Director Dr. Rahul Gupta released an update on drug
overdose deaths in America. The latest CDC report shows 109,940
predicted overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending in February
2023. Most of these deaths are caused by illicit synthetic drugs like
clandestinely-manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine, often in
combination with other drugs, including cocaine and heroin. (Dr. Rahul
Gupta Releases Statement on CDC's New Overdose Death Data, 2023) This
alarming statistic reflects that America is losing around 9,161 people
per month to drugs.
When you look closer into the statistics in some areas of the
country like New Orleans, 95 percent of overdose deaths in 2022 were
from fentanyl according to Coroner Dr. Dwight McKenna. (Robin, 2023)
When you look at the death statistics in San Diego, California,
there was a 2,375 percent increase in fentanyl-related deaths in the 5-
year period 2016-2021. (Fentanyl Seizures at Border Continue to Spike,
Making San Diego a National Epicenter for Fentanyl Trafficking, 2022)
According to the Families against Fentanyl who have analyzed CDC
statistics and have done a tremendous job educating the public on the
troubling trends involving fentanyl, they revealed the following in the
recent report ``The Changing Faces of Fentanyl Deaths.''
(The Changing Faces of Fentanyl Deaths, 2023)
Synthetic opioid (fentanyl) poisoning was still the leading
cause of death among Americans 18 to 45 in 2021.
Synthetic opioid (fentanyl) fatalities among children are
rising faster than any other age group.
In just 2 years, synthetic opioid (fentanyl) deaths among
children ages 1 to 4 more than tripled, and increased 4-fold
among infants less than one, and children ages 5 to 14.
Since 2015, deaths among infants increased nearly 10-fold;
among children ages 1 to 14 deaths increased 15-fold: an
increase of more than 1,400 percent.
These are staggering statistics impacting communities all around
the country, and all Americans should be alarmed and demanding
accountability from the leaders.
Look at the recent press stories involving celebrity families, a 9-
month-old baby and Black and Hispanic Americans impacted by deadly
fentanyl. This again highlights how citizens are suffering, from all
walks of life, because of the ruthless cartels and the wide-open
borders.
Ray Lewis III, the son of two-time Super Bowl champion Ray
Lewis, has died, police said in an incident report detailing a
suspected overdose. (Press, 2023)
Robert De Niro's grandson Leandro died from fentanyl-laced
pills (Ushe, 2023)
Teen mom charged with aggravated manslaughter for giving 9-
month-old baby fentanyl (El-Bawab, 2023)
As Fentanyl Overdose Rates Rise Among Latinos, So Do Calls
for Government Action (Gunderson, 2023)
Mass. set a record for opioid overdose deaths. Black
residents were hardest hit (Bebinger, 2023)
Sarah Richardson, Program Manager at the Chicago Department of
Public Health Office of Substance Use, said city data shows a deepening
crisis. ``What we're seeing in Chicago right now is that 80 to 90
percent of our overdose deaths involve fentanyl, and a growing number
of those deaths involve fentanyl as the only opioid in that death,''
Richardson said. ``The number of Latinos in the community that have
experienced a fatal overdose has significantly increased in recent
years. We've seen those increases across every demographic group, but
the greatest increase has in fact been in our Latino communities in
Chicago.''
There are so many stories around the country that highlight the
unprecedented nature of the fentanyl poisoning crisis. Please see the
mass poisonings all over the country at the end of this document.*
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* The information has been retained in committee files.
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Over the last few years while actively supporting law enforcement
in the private sector, I participated in the production of
documentaries, national media segments, Congressional, think tank and
educational sessions, and rallies with grieving families and non-
profits from around America to help educate the public and bring needed
awareness to the dangerous and evolving synthetic drug crisis.
I will continue to engage with families who lost children from
these poisonous substances hitting our communities like a tsunami. It's
hard to imagine the lack of engagement and action from of our national
leaders in Washington especially on the education for young Americans
and the mixed messages from the leadership. I have worked tirelessly
with families to recruit celebrities, professional athletes, role
models and social media influencers to help create a movement to get
specific messages to the kids. Sadly, these efforts to date haven't
been very successful due to the stigma related to drugs and lack of
knowledge on the current crisis. All Americans must realize this
ongoing poisoning crisis is like nothing we have ever seen and the I
believe if the right celebrity pushed out short social media videos,
the kids would get the important messages. We must all accept that most
children are not watching Congressional hearings, mainstream media,
cable news, or listening to podcasts so it's critical to have role
models step up in a big way to fill the educational void.
The Mexican cartels are also working in close partnership with CCN,
operating with impunity and killing our citizens at historic levels.
The threats posed by the cartels are growing rapidly as they make
billions of dollars, especially benefiting from human smuggling with
the porous Southern Border. The current border policies are
irresponsible and placing all Americans at risk. As we see all the
troubling news on the fentanyl poisoning crisis, there are also
dangerous connections between the criminal activity of the Mexican
cartels and terrorist groups like Hezbollah. The topic of narco-
terrorism has been a priority of mine for many years, and we documented
a very disturbing partnership during DEA's priority operation Project
Cassandra to show the growing role of Hezbollah, working with the
cartels in drug trafficking and global money laundering.
As we look at the latest statistics from the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection (CBP), all Americans should be concerned with the
fact that in fiscal year 2023 through May there were 127 U.S. Border
Patrol Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS) encounters between ports of
entry of non-U.S. Citizens. This reflects a staggering increase
compared to the 3 apprehended for the entire fiscal year when the last
administration enforced strong border security policies.
The country is currently being invaded by an overwhelming number of
illegal immigrants from over 150 countries and deadly drugs killing
Americans at historic levels. The brave men and women of CBP are being
inundated with administrative duties and migrant processing instead of
focusing on protecting our national country. The outrageous dereliction
of duty by the current administration with the weak border policies
distracting our CBP from securing the country is placing every American
at risk.
The New York Times headline published on July 13, 2023, says ``This
Agency Was Created With a Terrorism Focus. Now It Also Has to Care for
Migrants.
Customs and Border Protection was set up after 9/11 amid the
fight against terrorism. Its responsibilities have ballooned
with the influx of asylum-seeking migrants crossing the
Southern Border.''
You don't have to be a border or immigration expert to understand
that the current administration's policies related to the border are a
recipe for a disaster. Look at the recent statement made by FBI
Director Christopher Wray,
``I've said before, there is no doubt that the greatest
long-term threat to our nation's ideas, our economic security,
and our national security is that posed by the Chinese
Communist government.'' (Inside the FBI: The China Threat,
2023)
In June there were several news reports on the disturbing number of
Chinese nationals crossing the U.S. Border.
Fox Business reported on June 26, 2023,
``There are certain Chinese coming in that are really
disturbing,'' Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang
said. Packs of Chinese males of military age, unattached to
family groups pretending not to speak English. These are
probably saboteurs who arecoming in on the first day of war
with Asia.''
Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., also claimed that ``10,000-plus''
Chinese nationals have been apprehended in fiscal year 2023,
``a massive 300 percent increase'' from the year prior. (Altus,
2023)
A recent Fox News report also reflected that over 12,000
Chinese nationals were apprehended at the border this fiscal
year thus far.
This concerning statement by the FBI Director combined with CBP's
statistics related to the massive increase of military age Chinese
national men apprehended at the border and that over 1,500,000 known
got-aways have been documented during this administration, I would say
as an experienced public safety and law enforcement executive, the
entire country is at serious risk.
Below provides the very alarming statistics of the fiscal year
through May of Southwest Land Border Encounters: (CBP.gov, 2023)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
On July 12, DEA Principal Deputy Administrator George Papadopoulos
testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border
Security and Enforcement at a hearing entitled, ``Protecting the U.S.
Homeland: Fighting the Flow from the Southwest Border'' Mr.
Papadopoulos stated the following:
The Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels pose the greatest criminal
drug threat the United States has ever faced.
The availability of fentanyl throughout the United States
has reached unprecedented heights. In 2022, DEA seized more
than 58 million fake pills containing fentanyl, and 13,000
pounds of fentanyl powder, equating to nearly 400 million
deadly doses of fentanyl. This is enough fentanyl to supply a
potentially lethal dose to every member of the U.S. population.
These seizures occurred in every State in the country.
These ruthless, violent, criminal organizations have
associates, facilitators, and brokers in all 50 States in the
United States, as well as in more than 100 countries around the
world.
The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel and their
affiliates control the vast majority of the fentanyl global
supply chain, from manufacture to distribution.
The cartels are buying precursor chemicals in the Peoples
Republic of China; transporting the precursor chemicals from
the PRC to Mexico; using the precursor chemicals to mass
produce fentanyl; using pill presses to process the fentanyl
into fake prescription pills; and using cars, trucks, and other
routes to transport the drugs from Mexico into the United
States for distribution. It costs the cartels as little as 10
cents to produce a fentanyl-laced fake prescription pill that
is sold in the United States for as much as $10 to $30 per
pill. As a result, the cartels make billions of dollars from
trafficking fentanyl into the United States.
The business model used by the Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels
is to grow at all costs, no matter how many people die in the
process. The cartels are engaging in deliberate, calculated
treachery to deceive Americans and drive addiction to achieve
higher profits.
Steven Cagen, assistant director, Homeland Security Investigations,
testified at the same Congressional hearing as Mr. Papadopoulos and
made the following statements:
TCOs flood the United States with deadly drugs, including
illicit fentanyl and other opioids.
Criminal organizations in the 21st Century do not limit
themselves to a single criminal enterprise. These criminal
organizations have expanded beyond narcotics smuggling and have
morphed into poly criminal TCOs involved in the associated
crimes of weapons trafficking, human trafficking, human
smuggling, money laundering, and other crimes.
TCOs have also evolved beyond insular entities and have
sought out partnerships with competing TCOs in furtherance of
their criminal activities. For example, the illicit
collaboration between Chinese TCOs and Mexican cartels has
created a complex criminal ecosystem that is fueling money-
laundering and narcotics-trafficking operations, specifically
illicit fentanyl, into and within the United States.
Chinese money-laundering organizations have developed
sophisticated networks in the United States, Mexico, China, and
throughout Asia to facilitate money-laundering schemes.
Mexican cartels have taken over fentanyl production and
operate on an industrial scale, they are obtaining precursor
chemicals from China and synthesizing these chemicals in Mexico
to produce fentanyl. Mexican cartels then smuggle the fentanyl
into the United States in either powder or pill form for
distribution.
Chinese TCOs also facilitate the trafficking and
distribution of illicit fentanyl pills by providing the Mexican
cartels with the pill press equipment to make the fake
oxycodone pills.
The Mexican cartels are purchasing these pill presses
directly from Chinese manufacturers that are producing the
equipment specifically for illicit activity.
CBP has also reported staggering drug seizure statistics for the
first 8 months of fiscal year 2023. CBP reports they seized 19,800
pounds of fentanyl. Although, I appreciate the incredible work of CBP
and all the law enforcement agencies and I'm totally impressed with the
dedication of the men and women on the front lines, these large
seizures of deadly drugs should be a ``wake up call'' for all
Americans. It's obvious and alarming to anyone who works in drug
enforcement or border security that if this is what agencies are
seizing, then everyone should be concerned on how much is being
manufactured in Mexico, imported, and now on the streets in America.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
To be clear, the current crisis can't be solved with law
enforcement alone. This complex and emerging problem requires that all
Americans unite. The United States needs more focus and resources on
drug education, treatment, and rehabilitation in addition to law
enforcement. This is an unprecedented public health, national security,
and community safety matter that also has huge mental health
ramifications for the addicted as well as their families. Sadly,
Americans are turning to what they think are legitimate prescription
pills for help and are getting ``fake'' pills containing deadly
fentanyl. Our citizens are being deceived to death in an exorbitant
number of cases. There are many great American patriots working in the
medical, education, addiction, science, technology, financial, and
other private-sector industries that can help develop comprehensive
strategies and plans to deal with this matter.
The status quo is an unacceptable option as too many lives are on
the line. There must be accountability for all resources provided to
these initiatives since it's not good enough to just provide funding.
We need to see the death rates decline across the country.
America has outdated technology and laws, limited resources
directed at these national security threats, deceptive political
leadership and huge morale issues across the agencies who are
responsible for keeping the country safe. There is a concerning
movement involving experienced law enforcement personnel retiring
rapidly. This is happening as the cartels are building up their
capabilities, enhancing their weapons systems, expanding their product
line and unfortunately after forming a lethal partnership with CCN.
Sadly, this has resulted in increased violence and escalating deaths in
the United States.
As a DEA supervisor for many years, the agent in charge of SOD for
almost 10 years and as an huge supporter of law enforcement and
grieving families since retirement, I learned so much about the
evolution of the opioid addiction crisis, the ``bombing of America''
from synthetic drugs coming from China and Mexico, the growing role of
CCN in drug trafficking and money laundering and the increased threats
posed to our country from the Mexican ``terror'' cartels.
Over the last year, there has been increased press reporting and
Government warnings about new and more powerful synthetic opioid drugs
or New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) like Nitazene, Etonitazene,
Isonitizene, and Protonitazene. Nitazines are being sourced from China
and being mixed into other drugs. DEA, Washington Field Division put
out a warning on June 1, 2022, alerting the public about this emerging
threat. (New, Dangerous Synthetic Opioid in D.C., Emerging in Tri-State
Area, 2022)
In addition to the Nitazene class of drugs, American communities
have been saturated with Xylazine mixed with fentanyl, known as Tranq.
Xylazine is a non-opiate sedative, analgesic, and muscle relaxant only
authorized in the United States for veterinary use and not approved for
human consumption. However massive amounts of illicit Xylazine are
being produced in Chinese labs as well and now this deadly flesh-eating
drug is destroying Americans all over the country.
On March 20,2023, DEA put out an emergency public warning on the
widespread threat of Xylazine mixed with Fentanyl and on July 11, 2023,
the White House announced warnings and a plan to deal with this
emerging drug threat. As stated in the press release, ONDCP Director
Dr. Gupta said,
``Xylazine has been detected in nearly every State in the country.''
And ``I have seen the devastating consequences of xylazine combined
with fentanyl firsthand.''
(FACT SHEET: In Continued Fight Against Overdose Epidemic, the White
House Releases National Response Plan to Address the Emerging Threat of
Fentanyl Combined with Xylazine, 2023) (DEA Reports Widespread Threat
of Fentanyl Mixed with Xylazine, 2023)
(The Growing Threat of Xylazine, 2022)
Deadly chemical substances are being manufactured in Chinese labs
and being distributed all over America. Although I appreciate of the
Government warnings and plans to deal with these emerging drug threats,
SYNTHETIC DRUGS COMING FROM CHINA AND MEXICO HAVE BEEN A GAME CHANGER
FOR THE UNITED STATES and we are under attack in my view. The U.S.G.
must be way more aggressive in dealing with this growing public health
and national security threat. Aggressive action plans, operational
implementation and accountability on the leaders should be a top
priority. Allowing the Mexican cartel operatives and people from around
the world to enter the country illegally at record levels is enhancing
the ability for criminals to kill Americans.
systematic corruption in mexico and growth of the cartels
Another disturbing aspect involving the Mexican cartels is their
role as narco-terrorists and their advancement with the use of
technology and weapon systems to enhance their deadly business
enterprise. They are not typical crime groups as they conduct acts of
terrorism not solely in furtherance of drug trafficking but for the
purpose of instilling fear in the public and influencing.
The cartels are responsible for utilizing terror tactics to
silence, torture, and kill civilians, government officials, Catholic
priests, and news reporters, who publicly speak out against the
violence inflicted by the cartels. The Mexican cartels have become
Mexico's insurgency's and have utilized terror tactics. They have
corrupted the system and undermine the Mexican government and the rule
of law. The Mexican cartels have recruited hundreds of trained law
enforcement and military personnel who now carry out executions and
assassinations on behalf of the cartels. The cartels routinely conduct
beheadings, in which corpses and heads are hung on public display. The
cartels are also indiscriminately killing to scare the general
population into submission and subservience.
The conviction of Genaro Garcia-Luna, former director of Mexico's
Public Security, in Federal court in New York and the DEA arrest of
Salvador Cienfuegos, former defense secretary of Mexico, reflects the
level of corruption at the highest level of the Mexican government.
(Mexico's former public security chief convicted in U.S. drug case,
2023)
(Golden, 2022) Having the top government officials on the Mexican
cartel's payroll, help the cartels operate with impunity moving tons of
drugs around the world and make billions. One of the biggest obstacles
for U.S. law enforcement is overcoming the presence of high-level
corruption in Mexico.
In my view, the U.S. Government mistakenly views the Mexican
cartels as only transnational crime organization, and its current
strategy to attack the cartel threat at the border and in America are
insufficient to end the Mexican cartels chaos and massive deaths to
Americans. Look at the amounts of young Americans dying daily from
their poisonous substances. The production is on the rise and the
supply of these poisonous drugs are vast. The United States must accept
and come to the realization that the cartels are operating like the
most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world.
As far as I know, there has never been a terrorist organization
like al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, or ISIS, that has killed this many Americans.
The U.S. Government assessment of the cartels must be updated. From my
perspective, it doesn't matter what the U.S.G. decides to name the
cartels, but rather what does matter is that the cartels are held fully
accountable with the right force. The consequences for their actions
must be appropriate based on their level of devastation they have
caused American families. On September 11, 2001, approximately 3,000
Americans were killed, and the United States responded appropriately.
With hundreds of thousands being killed from poisonous fentanyl, it's
about time the cartels feel the full force of America.
The United States and Mexico efforts and strategies against the
Mexican cartels have been proven to be ineffective in its ability to
curtail and significantly reduce the level of drug trafficking and
violence inflicted by the cartels. America must confront the level of
violence and terror carried out by the cartels. The U.S.G. should not
limit the strategy to combat the cartels with law enforcement alone.
Additional capabilities must be put on the table to combat the Mexican
``terror'' cartels. The U.S.G must use whatever authorities are needed
to create a seamless plan to bridge the gap between the law
enforcement, military, and the intelligence community to decimate these
ruthless networks.
The cartels utilize military grade weapons and C4 explosives and
have been found to be in possession of weapons such as assault rifles,
pistols, grenades, RPG rocket launchers, claymore anti-personnel mines
and man portable air defense systems. The Mexican cartels have taken
control of Mexico through active means of terrorism. During my last
trip to the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, I was extremely concerned to
learn about the 9,000 drones used by the cartels for surveillance
inside America especially knowing how the cartels are now dropping C4
explosives on their adversaries in Mexico. It's a threat growing daily
on our Southern Border and the use of drones and explosives is a huge
risk to our brave men and women of CBP who are fighting daily to keep
us safe.
On July 12, 2023, as reported in ABC News, A drug cartel set off a
coordinated series of 7 roadway bombs in western Mexico that killed 4
police officers and 2 civilians. The governor of Jalisco state said the
explosions were ``a trap'' set by the cartel to kill law enforcement
personnel. This is another recent example of the advanced terrorist-
style attacks carried out by the Mexican Cartels. (STEVENSON, 2023)
recommendations
The President should hold a White House Summit immediately
to declare a national health and security emergency based on
the historic number of deaths from fentanyl and the escalating
growing lethal relationship between the Mexican cartels and the
CCN. All Americans must understand this is not the same old
drug problem and synthetic drugs have changed the game.
Create an Operation Warp Speed type of response for Fentanyl
like we had for COVID and apply the best practices and lessons
learned to address the current fentanyl poisoning crisis.
The President should direct the Department of Education to
implement a mandatory and robust curriculum at all schools to
ensure young Americans are learning about the emerging deadly
synthetic drug threats.
The President must mandate the CDC to update the processes
on reporting timely and producing accurate statistics on
fentanyl and other synthetic drug poisonings and deaths.
The White House should collaborate with professional
athletes, role models, celebrities, and social media
influencers to start an immediate outreach campaign to push
impactful video reels on social media sites targeting the
younger generation. The White House is currently using social
media influencers to push campaign messages out so why not
message about fentanyl to save American lives in the current
state of emergency.
Declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.
Work with Mexico and provide full U.S. support to decimate
the cartel's operations.
Hold high-level security meetings with the Mexican
counterparts to accurately assess their commitment to shut
down the cartels and implement bilateral strategies.
Offer the use of U.S. military assets for training,
capabilities, and resources to ensure the appropriate
resources are directed at the threats.
Apply pressure on Mexico for increased information sharing
and bilateral investigations.
Increase operations to arrest and extradite the highest
members of the cartels to face justice in the United
States.
Increase operations in Mexico to identify and destroy
fentanyl and methamphetamine manufacturing labs.
Consider precision strikes on the cartel's production labs
in Mexico.
Declare the Sinaloa and CJNG cartel's terrorist
organizations based on their growing direct threats to the
United States and Mexico and apply the appropriate U.S.
authorities, resources, and capabilities.
Since this recommendation is stuck in U.S. bureaucracy and
doesn't seem to have the full support of U.S. leadership,
the United States must at least respond appropriately based
on the gravity of the threats posed by the cartels. The
current response is unacceptable and irresponsible by
anyone who took the oath to support the U.S. Constitution
and protect America.
Increase U.S. Treasury designations and sanctions to target
people and businesses facilitating the deadly criminal
enterprises and flooding America with poisonous drugs. Seize as
many assets derived from criminal activity as possible.
Expand multi-agency task forces with additional resources to
target the supply of precursor chemicals from China and other
countries to the Mexican cartels.
Build up relationships with China, India, and other
countries involved in shipping pre-cursor chemicals to the
cartels.
Strengthen border security with the policies that work and
always place the interest of American citizens first.
Need additional scanning resources at the border.
Implement border walls with appropriate technology where
necessary based on Homeland Security expertise not based on
political motives.
Continue the border wall construction.
Implement remain in Mexico sound and common-sense policies
to address the tsunami of illegal migrants entering the
United States.
Eliminate the loopholes for the fraudulent asylum claims.
Office of National Drug Control Policy of United States
should develop Public Service Announcements immediately and
establish close partnerships with grieving families and
nonprofits who are fighting daily to spread awareness and save
lives.
Hold social media companies accountable for facilitating the
movement of deadly drugs and other serious criminal activity
like ``sextortion'' on their platforms.
Increase resources for mental health, treatment, and
rehabilitation for drug addiction and apply strict
accountability for the resources. Need to articulate the
results and progress.
Provide resources for lab analysis and medical examiners to
expedite the process.
Set up fentanyl death task forces like Task Force 10 in San
Diego and multi-agency task forces like in Los Angeles to
aggressively prosecute fentanyl dealers who are killing
citizens.
Increase resources and prosecutions of synthetic drug
violators and ensure maximum penalties.
Establish a more formal DC-based multi-agency ``Synthetic
Drug Task Force'' to use existing resources at the National
Targeting Center at DOD, National Targeting Center at CBP, DOJ
OCDETF Fusion Center, SOD, DEA's Special Intelligence, HIDTAs,
HHS, FDA, USPS, Treasury, and other key agencies.
Build new strategies to stop the complex money-laundering
schemes used by the CCN to assist the cartels by moving
funds efficiently back to the leaders.
Must address the outdated laws and polices especially
related to criminal communications.
Work with technology companies and law enforcement to
collaborate on the growing concern of encrypted
communications and the impacts to national security.
Address the DOJ policy regarding the December 16, 2022,
memorandum to all Federal prosecutors on charging, pleas,
and sentencing on drug crimes.
The perception from law enforcement around America is
their own DOJ is way to ``soft on criminals''. The
dedicated law enforcement is working hard to keep citizens
safe are feel strongly they are being undermined. There are
huge moral issues developing.
Must engage with mail services companies like UPS, FEDEX,
DHL, and others to address the movement of deadly substances
into America.
Need updated technology at mail facilities to screen and
identify contraband moving around the country.
** The above is not an all-inclusive list of recommendations to address
this very complex and escalating crisis.
conclusion
The Mexican cartels, Sinaloa, and CJNG, currently operate
throughout the United States and around the globe. They are working
with CCN and are flooding America with deadly synthetic drugs. They are
operating with impunity while taking full advantages of the
vulnerabilities in the U.S. system and failing border policies and
immigrations laws. The cartels are growing in strength and power and
using advanced technology and weapons systems to grow their operations.
Migrants are dying in record numbers on their journey to America and
being exploited and trafficked by the cartels at the most inhumane
levels we have ever seen.
The current enforcement focus, treating the cartels as only
criminal organizations, is not enough to stop the death and
destruction. The United States must shut down the cartel's ability to
operate with or without Mexico placing the safety and security of
Americans first. We must use all authorities and capabilities of not
only law enforcement but the intelligence community, the Department of
Defense and Treasury Department as one force to decimate the cartels.
CBP must focus their resources on border security and not have to
be inundated with migrant processing, baby sitting, and administrative
duties. The country is saturated with crime, drugs, and violence fueled
by the Mexican cartels and, the cartels are taking full advantage of
the massive addiction and the demand for opioids and methamphetamines
all over the United States.
During his Senate testimony on February 15, 2023, Dr. Rahul Gupta,
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy of United States,
stated the following related to the current drug situation:
``Worst drug crisis we have ever seen.''
``Unacceptable to me''
``Unacceptable to the President''
``Direct threat to public health and national security''
``New era of drug trafficking''.
Based on these statements, the American public and specifically the
families who have lost loved ones to poisonous fentanyl, deserve full
transparency and way more action. Solving this unprecedented national
security and public health crisis won't go away from just words. We
need new strategies and way more action. We must recognize that this is
something America has never faced before, and we are losing the future
generation rapidly.
Terrorists will continue to tap into the incredible amounts of
money generated from drug trafficking and many other criminal
activities such as human trafficking, counterfeiting, weapon sales, and
sex trafficking so it's imperative that our hard-working law
enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel get the resources and
support to enforce the laws and keep Americans safe.
We need the leadership of the Attorney General, the Secretary of
the Department of Homeland Security, executives from the Department of
Defense and the intelligence community to unite and battle these
growing adversaries. We also need to work closely with our State and
local counterparts who are under-resourced trying to deal with this
crisis on the front lines. We need to unite our agencies as the
complexity of the threats continues to grow. The threats to this great
country are moving at lightning speed and we need a sense of urgency at
this point. It's evident that the Mexican cartels are moving extremely
fast while our investigators and assets are getting ``stuck in the
mud'' of politics, bureaucracy, and antiquated laws.
In my view, fentanyl is a chemical weapon and the narco-terrorists'
Mexican cartels are destroying our country as their work closely with
the CCN.
We need to step up the game with a sense of urgency. Law
enforcement will continue to do their best in enforcing the laws, but
America needs Congress and White House leadership to further engage on
these growing issues. The death rates are spiking and impacting
Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. We must come together and
develop updated strategies to combat these threats.
As DHS Secretary Mayorkas stated during a Senate hearing in March
2023, ``The record number of Americans dying of fentanyl overdoses is
now the ``single greatest challenge we face as a country.'' Based on
this statement, America needs policies and actions consistent to this
assessment.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak on these important topics
impacting our national security and public safety.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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Gans, J. (2023, Feb 8). 21 States call on Biden to label Mexican
drug cartels terrorist organizations. Retrieved from TheHill.com:
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Golden, T. (2022, Dec 8). The Cienfuegos Affair: Inside the Case
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cienfuegos.html.
Gunderson, E. (2023, July 21). As Fentanyl Overdose Rates Rise
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rise-among-latinos-so-do-calls-government-action.
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states-william-p-barr-and-fiscal-general-mexico.
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emerging-tri-state-area.
Press, A. (2023, June 17). Ray Lewis III, son of two-time Super
Bowl champ, dies of suspected overdose. Retrieved from
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Robin, N. (2023, May 16). Catastrophe;' 95 percent of overdose
deaths in New Orleans were from fentanyl in 2022. Retrieved from
fox8live.com: https://www.fox8live.com/2023/03/16/catastrophe-95-
overdose-deaths-new-orleans-were-fentanyl-2022/.
Stevenson, M. (2023, July 12). Roadway bombs planted by drug cartel
in Mexico kill 4 police officers, 2 civilians. Retrieved from
abcnews.go: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/roadway-
bomb-planted-drug-cartel-kills-3-police-101164435.
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report.
The Changing Faces of Fentanyl Deaths. (2023, Jan 12). Retrieved
from familiesagainstfentnayl.org: https://
www.familiesagainstfentanyl.org/research/fentanyl-by-age-and-cause-
report.
The Growing Threat of Xylazine. (2022, Dec 21). Retrieved from
dea.gov: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/
The%20Growing%20Threat%20of%20-
Xylazine%20and%20its%20Mixture%20with%20Illicit%20Drugs.pdf.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2023, Feb 22). Drug Seizure
Statistics. Retrieved from CBP.com: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/
drug-seizure-statistics.
Ushe, N. (2023, July 6). Robert De Niro's grandson Leandro died
from fentanyl-laced pills. Retrieved from USAToday.com: https://
www.usatoday.com/story/en- tertainment/celebrities/2023/07/06/leandro-
de-niro-rodriguez-fentanyl-cause-of-death-report/70386773007/.
Chairman Green. I now recognize----
Mr. Thompson. Hold on a minute. Why do you reference me?
Mr. Maltz. Because in your opening statement, you said that
this was a charade, it was a waste of time, whatever words you
used, and the kids are dying at record levels, and I don't
appreciate that.
Mr. Thompson. Look, I had said----
Chairman Green. Hold on. The Ranking Member is not
recognized.
We are going to continue on with our witnesses.
Ms. Felbab-Brown, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF VANDA FELBAB-BROWN, PH D, DIRECTOR, INITIATIVE ON
NONSTATE ARMED ACTORS, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Thank you for this opportunity to
testify.
As was said, I'm a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution. The Brookings Institution is U.S. nonprofit
organization devoted to independent research and policy
solution. My testimony represents solely my personal views and
not those of anyone else.
U.S. domestic prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and
law enforcement measures are fundamental and indispensable to
countering the devastating fentanyl crisis. Mexican criminal
groups, particularly e Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva
Generacion, source fentanyl and fentanyl precursors in China,
synthetize them into fentanyl in Mexico, and then smuggle them
into the United States. Some 90 percent of fentanyl seizures
occur in legal ports of entry, and this is very likely where
most fentanyl is smuggled through. Mexican cartels
predominantly hire U.S. citizens to smuggle drugs across the
border. U.S. citizens represent more than 85 percent of those
convicted of fentanyl charges.
Drugs are hidden frequently in personal vehicles or within
legal cargo. New ports of entry scanning technology authorized
by the Biden administration are expected to significantly
increase the percentage of inspected vehicles and cargo. A most
welcome development. A highly pernicious recent development is
the establishment in Mexico of pharmacies that sell fentanyl-
laced drugs and other dangerous substances, as well as drugs
such such as antibiotics and steroids without prescription.
These are located in major tourist areas and very likely are
linked to Mexican cartels. Yet, although they operate in plain
sight of Mexican authorities, the Mexican authorities appear to
take little action against them.
Increasing payments for precursors originating in China are
now occurring in wildlife, a significant problem endangering
public health and safety, as well as food and security and
global biodiversity with repercussions for the United States.
In Mexico, the collapse of rule of law is profound and goes
far beyond the high rates of homicides and disappearances.
While the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador persists in its do-little policy vis-a-vis Mexican
cartels, the groups are increasingly resorting to more brazen
violence, enjoying high levels of impunity as well as governing
large scope of economies, institutions, and a significant
number of people while seeking to influence elections.
In contrast, in the United States, because of the high
effectiveness of U.S. law enforcement and policies, Mexican
criminal groups are far less violent and do not behave in the
same way. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of violent, serious
crime in the United States are committed by U.S. citizens.
U.S. counter-narcotics and law enforcement bargaining with
Mexico is constrained by the U.S. reliance on Mexico to stop
migrant flows to the United States. If the United States were
able to pass the comprehensive immigration reform that would
allow legal pathways for those seeking protection and
opportunities in the United States, it would be far better able
to induce the Mexican government to meaningfully cooperate on
counternarcotics and other law enforcement issues.
In its engagement with the Mexican government the United
States should prioritize shutting down Mexican pharmacies that
sell fentanyl and methamphetamine-laced drugs, the actual
dismantling of drug-trafficking networks, not merely seizures
and labs and more effective Mexican prosecutorial action.
Rather than designating Mexican criminal groups as foreign
terrorist organizations, the United States should further
significantly intensify border inspections. That requires
adequately resourcing U.S. Customs and Border protection, both
with resources and personnel for legal ports of entry, as well
as developing packages of leverage, such as indictment
portfolios and visa denials against Mexican officials who
sabotage rule of law in Mexico and facilitate cartel
activities.
The United States should also adopt a true whole-of-
Government approach to countering fentanyl smuggling,
authorizing a wide range of U.S. agencies, including the
departments, to support U.S. law enforcement. Because the
cartels are no longer specializing simply in drug trafficking,
but a whole variety of legal and illegal economies, the
approach needs to be multifaceted. That means increasing
intelligence collections against a wide variety of activities
the cartels engage in, such as crimes against nature and
consequently the number of U.S. Fish and Wildlife special
agents and investigators, as well as other specialists for
other economies. It also means bringing a wide set of law
enforcement actors to organized crime drug force task forces.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Felbab-Brown follows:]
Prepared Statement of Vanda Felbab-Brown
July 17, 2023
Dear Chairman Green, Ranking Member Thompson, and distinguished
Members of the Committee on Homeland Security: I am honored to have
this opportunity to testify at this hearing entitled, ``Biden and
Mayorkas' Open Border: Advancing Cartel Crime in America.''
I am a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution where I direct
The Initiative on Non-State Armed Actors and co-direct the Africa
Security Initiative. Illicit economies, such as the drug trade and
wildlife trafficking, organized crime, and corruption, and their
impacts on U.S. and local security issues around the world are the
domain of my work and the subject of several of the books I have
written. I have conducted fieldwork on these issues in Latin America,
Asia, and Africa. I have been studying crime and security policies in
Mexico and their impact on public safety in the United States for over
two decades and have recently returned from a month-long research trip
in Mexico in June 2023.
This testimony draws extensively on my many publications on crime
issues in Mexico, available on my page on Brookings's website,\1\ as
well as my latest research trip in Mexico.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Vanda Felbab-Brown, The Brookings Institution, https://
www.brookings.edu/people/vanda-felbab-brown/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Brookings Institution is a U.S. nonprofit organization devoted
to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct
high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to
provide innovative, practical recommendations for policy makers and the
public. The testimony that I am submitting represents solely my
personal views and does not reflect the views of Brookings, its other
scholars, employees, officers, and/or trustees.
executive summary
U.S. domestic prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law
enforcement measures are fundamental and indispensable to countering
the devastating fentanyl crisis.
However, the structural characteristics of synthetic drugs such as
fentanyl, including the ease of developing similar, but not scheduled,
synthetic drugs and their new precursors--increasingly a wide array of
dual-use chemicals--pose immense structural obstacles to controlling
their supply.
Nonetheless, given the extent and lethality of the synthetic opioid
epidemic in North America and its emergent spread to other parts of the
world, even supply control measures with partial and limited
effectiveness can save lives and thus need to be designed as smartly
and robustly as possible.
the trafficking patterns
Mexican criminal groups--principally the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel
Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG)--source fentanyl, fentanyl precursors,
and pre-precursors from China. In Mexico, they synthesize the
precursors into fentanyl. Sometimes they traffic finished fentanyl to
the United States in an unadulterated form; other times, they mix it
into other drugs, press it into pills, and traffic such fentanyl
contraband to the United States.
Some 90% of fentanyl seizures occur in legal ports of entry.
Mexican cartels predominantly hire U.S. citizens to smuggle drugs
across the border; U.S. citizens represent more than 85% of those
convicted of fentanyl charges. Drugs, such as fentanyl, are frequently
hidden in concealed vehicle compartments driven by U.S. citizens with
U.S. license plates. Traffickers also extensively hide fentanyl and
other drugs within legal cargo entering the United States through legal
ports of entry.
Yet despite efforts to increase port-of-entry inspections, the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency is able to inspect only some
of the entering vehicles. New ports-of-entry scanning technologies
authorized by the Biden administration are expected to significantly
increase the percentage of inspected vehicles, a most welcome
development.
Yet drug trafficking groups also utilize other smuggling methods,
such as tunnels, maritime boats, and drones.
A highly pernicious recent development is the establishment of
pharmacies in Mexico, particularly in major international tourist
areas, that sell fentanyl-laced drugs, other dangerous substances, and
regulated medications, such as antibiotics, without prescription. Most
likely linked to major Mexican cartels, these pharmacies significantly
increase the dangers of fentanyl trafficking as well as increased
threats to global public health, security, and the economy. Yet
although these pharmacies operate in violation of Mexican laws and in
plain sight, there appears to be little meaningful action by Mexican
law enforcement and regulatory authorities to shut them down.
Money laundering
Chinese actors have come to play an increasing role in laundering
money for Mexican cartels, circumventing the U.S. and Mexican formal
banking systems. Other money laundering and value transfers between
Mexican and Chinese criminal networks include trade-based laundering;
value transfer utilizing wildlife products, such as protected and
unprotected marine products and timber; real estate; cryptocurrencies;
casinos; and bulk cash. Indeed, despite intensified efforts by the
United States to counter the flow of bulk cash to Mexico across the
U.S.-Mexico border across several administrations, extensive amounts of
illicit money and weapons continue to flow from the United States to
Mexico.
The increasing payments for drug precursors originating in China in
wildlife products are particularly noteworthy. This method of payment
engenders multiple threats to public health and safety, economic
sustainability, food security, and global biodiversity. If this
wildlife trafficking spreads dangerous zoonotic diseases, it could even
pose a threat to national security.
The Behavior of Mexican Cartels in Mexico and in the United States
In Mexico, the collapse of the rule of law is profound and goes far
beyond the high rates of homicides and disappearances of people
perpetrated by criminal groups. While the administration of President
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador persists in its do-little policy, Mexican
criminal groups are resorting more and more to brazen violence while
enjoying high levels of impunity in Mexico.
In Mexico, Mexican criminal groups increasingly govern a large
scope of territories, economies, and institutions and a significant
number of people. They have also profoundly intensified their efforts
to influence elections at all levels of the government.
Investigative and prosecutorial capacities in Mexico remain
limited. They are overwhelmed by the level of crime in Mexico and
suffering from criminal infiltration, corruption, and political
interference despite decades-long efforts at reform.
In the United States, because of the high effectiveness of U.S. law
enforcement, Mexican criminal groups behave strikingly differently:
they are far less violent and do not have the capacity to govern
people, institutions, or territories. The overwhelming majority of
violent and serious crimes in the United States are committed by U.S.
citizens.
Indeed, even in Mexico, Mexican criminal groups intensely fear U.S.
law enforcement actions. Yet the Mexican government has gravely
undermined the capacity of U.S. law enforcement to operate in Mexico.
Mexican drug cartels are expanding their role into crimes against
nature, and they are also increasingly infiltrating and seeking to
dominate a variety of legal economies in Mexico, including fisheries,
logging, and agriculture, and extorting an even wider array of legal
economies.
Because of the diversification of the economic portfolio of Mexican
cartels and Chinese criminal networks, focusing primarily on drug
seizures close to their source is no longer an adequate approach for
effectively countering drug smuggling networks that send pernicious
drugs to the United States or their financial systems.
Countering poaching and wildlife trafficking in Mexico and
thwarting illegal fishing in Mexican and Latin American waters are
increasingly important aspects of countering Mexican drug-trafficking
cartels and their damaging effects in the United States and Mexico.
Indeed, this convergence of illicit economies also provides the United
States with new opportunities for intelligence gathering and law
enforcement actions, even as China-Mexico law enforcement cooperation
against the trafficking of fentanyl and precursor agents for meth and
synthetic opioids remains minimal.
Mexico's Inadequate Law Enforcement Cooperation with the United States
Just like with China, Mexico's cooperation with U.S.
counternarcotics efforts is profoundly hollowed out. The Mexican
government of Lopez Obrador has eviscerated counternarcotics and law
enforcement cooperation with the United States since 2019 and
particularly since 2020 when U.S. law enforcement activities in Mexico
became shackled and undermined by Mexican government actions.
The U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health,
and Safe Communities \2\ of the fall of 2021 reiterates multiple
dimensions of counternarcotics cooperation, including law enforcement,
and emphasizes the public health and anti-money-laundering elements of
the agreement, as the Mexican government sought.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ ``Summary of the Action Plan for U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial
Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities: A Fact
Sheet,'' U.S. Department of State, January 31, 2022, https://
www.state.gov/summary-of-the-action-plan-for-u-s-mexico-bicentennial-
framework-for-security-public-health-and-safe-communities/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In practice, however, the Mexican government's actions and
cooperation on its side of the U.S.-Mexico border remain profoundly
inadequate, including and particularly in law enforcement actions to
counter the Mexican criminal groups and their production and
trafficking of fentanyl. Crucially, even when drug laboratories are
actually busted by Mexican authorities, little network dismantling and
few meaningful drug prosecutions follow. Traffickers can thus easily
survive and recover from limited financial losses by erecting new drug
labs.
U.S. counternarcotics and law enforcement bargaining with Mexico is
constrained by the U.S. reliance on Mexico to stop migrant flows to the
United States. Both the Trump and the Biden administrations strongly
prioritized securing Mexico's cooperation in stopping the flows of
undocumented migrants to the United States. This prioritization--and
the dependence on Mexico's cooperation on that issue--has left the
Mexican government feeling emboldened to disregard other U.S. interests
and Mexico's commitments, such as on counternarcotics and law
enforcement cooperation. If the United States were able to conduct a
comprehensive immigration reform that would provide legal work
opportunities to those currently seeking protection and opportunities
in the United States through unauthorized migration, it would have far
better leverage to induce meaningful and robust counternarcotics and
law enforcement cooperation with Mexico and would be better able to
save U.S. lives.
Policy Priorities and Tools
Although supply control measures have partial and limited
effectiveness, improving them to supplement U.S. domestic treatment and
harm reduction measures is important.
Strengthening border controls at legal ports of entry through which
the vast majority of fentanyl enters the United States is one such
important measure, as is demanding better cooperation from the Mexican
government.
Since Mexican drug cartels have diversified their activities into a
wide array of illicit and licit commodities, primarily focusing on drug
seizures close to the source is no longer sufficient for effectively
disrupting fentanyl smuggling and criminal networks implicated in it.
Rather, it is imperative to counter all of the Mexican criminal
groups' economic activities. This includes countering poaching and
wildlife trafficking from Mexico and illegal logging and mining in
places where the Mexican cartels have reach, acting against illegal
fishing off Mexico and around Latin America and elsewhere, and shutting
down wildlife trafficking networks into China. These are all
increasingly important elements of countering Mexican and Chinese drug-
trafficking groups and reducing the flow of fentanyl to the United
States.
In its law enforcement engagement with the Mexican government, the
United States should prioritize:
shutting down Mexican pharmacies that sell fentanyl- and
methamphetamine-adulterated drugs;
not merely seizures and busts of laboratories but the actual
dismantling of drug trafficking networks, particularly of their
middle-operational layers that are hard to recreate and the
removal of which significantly hampers the ability of criminal
groups to operate and smuggle contraband;
and far more effective Mexican prosecutorial actions against
suppliers.
The United States has various tools to induce better cooperation
from Mexico: Designating Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist
Organizations (FTOs) would enable intelligence gathering and strike
options for the United States military, such as against some fentanyl
labs in Mexico. But the number of available strike targets in Mexico
would be limited, and the strikes would not robustly disrupt the
criminal groups. Neither would the FTO designation add authorities to
the economic sanctions and anti-money laundering and financial
intelligence tools that the already-in-place designation of
Transnational Criminal Organization carries.
Moreover, such unilateral U.S. military actions in Mexico would
severely jeopardize relations with our vital trading partner and
neighbor and the FTO designation could significantly limit and outright
hamper other U.S. foreign policy options, measures, and interests.
Instead, the United States should:
consider further significantly intensifying border
inspections;
adequately resource U.S. law enforcement agencies such as
the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to adopt the most
advanced scanners and increase the number of CBP inspectors at
U.S. legal ports;
develop packages of leverage, including indictment
portfolios and visa denials, against Mexican national security
and law enforcement officials and politicians who sabotage rule
of law cooperation in Mexico, facilitate cartel activities, and
undermine law enforcement cooperation with the United States.
Importantly, to effectively counter the fentanyl-smuggling actors,
the United States should expand and smarten up its own measures against
criminal actors, including by:
truly adopting a whole-of-Government approach to countering
fentanyl-smuggling entities;
authorizing a wide range of U.S. Government agencies,
including the Departments of State and Defense, to support U.S.
law enforcement against Mexican and Chinese criminal actors and
fentanyl trafficking and crimes against nature;
collecting relevant intelligence on crimes against nature to
understand criminal linkages to foreign governments and
criminal groups and elevate such intelligence collection in the
U.S. National Intelligence Priorities Framework;
expanding the number and frequency of participation of U.S.
wildlife investigators and special agents in Organized Crime
Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF);
increasing the number of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
special agents and investigators, which have flatlined since
the 1970's even as the value of wildlife trafficking has
significantly increased since then; and
designating wildlife trafficking as a predicate offense for
wiretap authorization.
the trafficking patterns
Synthetic opioids are the source of the deadliest and unabating
U.S. drug epidemic ever. Since 1999, drug overdoses have killed over 1
million Americans,\3\ a lethality rate that has increased significantly
since 2012 when synthetic opioids from China began supplying the U.S.
demand for illicit opioids. In 2021, the number of fatalities was
106,699 \4\; in 2022, it is estimated at 107,477.\5\ Most of the deaths
are due to fentanyl, consumed on its own or mixed into fake
prescription pills, heroin, and increasingly methamphetamine and
cocaine.
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\3\ Julie O'Donnell, Lauren J. Tanz, R. Matt Gladden, Nicole L.
Davis, and Jessica Bitting, ``Trends in and Characteristics of Drug
Overdose Deaths Involving Illicitly Manufactured Fentanyls--United
States, 2019-2020,'' Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 70, No. 50,
December 17, 2021.
\4\ Merianne Rose Spencer, Arialdi M. Minino, and Margaret Warner,
``Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2001-2021,'' NCHS Data
Brief No, 457, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National
Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, December 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/
db457.pdf.
\5\ ``Dr. Rahul Gupta Releases Statement on CDC's New Overdose
Death Data,'' The White House, Office of National Drug Control Policy,
January 11, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/briefing-room/2023/
01/11/dr-rahul-gupta-releases-statement-on-cdcs-new-overdose-death-
data-2/
#:?:text=Rahul%2520Gupta%252C%2520Director%2520of%2520the,period%2520-
ending%2520in%2520August%25202022.
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After years of intense U.S. diplomacy, China placed the entire
class of synthetic opioids on a regulatory schedule.\6\ Yet it remains
the principal (if indirect) source of U.S. fentanyl.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Mark Landler, ``U.S. and China Call Truce in Trade War,'' The
New York Times, December 1, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/
world/trump-xi-g20-merkel.html.
\7\ Vanda Felbab-Brown, ``China's Role in the Smuggling of
Synthetic Drugs and Precursors,'' The Brookings Institution, March
2022, https://www.brookings.edu/events/chinas-role-in-the-smuggling-of-
synthetic-drugs-and-precursors/.
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The fentanyl scheduling and China's adoption of stricter mail
monitoring have created some deterrence effects. Instead of finished
fentanyl being shipped directly to the United States, most smuggling
now takes place via Mexico.
Mexican criminal groups--principally the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG--
source fentanyl, fentanyl precursors, and pre-precursors from China. In
Mexico, they synthesize the precursors into fentanyl. Sometimes they
traffic finished fentanyl to the United States in an unadulterated
form, other times, they mix it into other drugs, press it into pills,
and traffic such fentanyl contraband to the United States. The Mexican
cartels are also increasingly exploring the possibility of moving
fentanyl production and pill-pressing sites to other parts of the
world, such as Colombia and Guatemala.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Luis Chaparro, ``Sinaloa Cartel Exports Fentanyl `Kitchens'
from Mexico to Colombia amid International Crackdown,'' Fox News, June
13, 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/world/sinaloa-cartel-export-fentanyl-
kitchens-mexico-colombia-international-crackdown; Vanda Felbab-Brown,
``How the Taliban Suppressed Opium in Afghanistan--and Why There's
Little to Celebrate,'' Time Magazine, July 17, 2023, https://time.com/
6294753/taliban-opium-suppression-afghanistan/; Vanda Felbab-Brown,
``The Foreign Policies of the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG--Part V: Europe's
Supercoke and On-the-Horizon Issues and the Middle East,'' Mexico
Today, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-foreign-policies-of-the-
sinaloa-cartel-and-cjng-part-v-europes-supercoke-and-on-the-horizon-
issues-and-the-middle-east/; Vanda Felbab-Brown, ``The Foreign Policies
of the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG--Part IV: Europe's Cocaine and Meth
Markets,'' Mexico Today, September 2, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/
opinions/the-foreign-policies-of-the-sinaloa-cartel-and-cjng-part-iv-
europes-cocaine-and-meth-markets/; and Vanda Felbab-Brown, ``The
Foreign Policies of the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG--Part I: In the
Americas,'' Mexico Today, July 22, 2022, https://mexicotoday.com/2022/
07/22/opinion-the-foreign-policies-of-the-sinaloa-cartel-cjng-part-i-
in-the-americas/.
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It appears that the vast majority of fentanyl enters the United
States through legal ports of entry. Certainly, in 2022, 90% of
fentanyl seizures occurred at a legal port of entry or interior vehicle
checkpoints.\9\ In 2022, Border Patrol agents who were not at vehicle
checkpoints accounted for just 9% of fentanyl seizures.\10\ Since
October 2022, i.e., the start of the 2023 fiscal year, 92% of fentanyl
seizures occurred at legal ports of entry.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), ``Drug Seizure
Statistics fiscal year 2023'' and ``Drug Seizure Statistics fiscal year
2022,'' https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/drug-seizure-statistics.
\10\ David J. Bier, ``Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens by
U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers,'' CATO Institute, September 14,
2022, https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-smuggled-us-citizens-us-
citizens-not-asylum-seekers.
\11\ Adam Isacson, ``Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: Fentanyl,
CBO One, `Friendship Park,' Washington Office on Latin America, March
24, 2023, https://www.wola.org/2023/03/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-
fentanyl-cbp-one-friendship-park/.
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Mexican cartels intensively hire U.S. citizens to smuggle drugs
across the border because U.S. citizens generate less suspicion and are
often subject to less inspection scrutiny than foreign nationals.
Drugs, such as fentanyl, are frequently hidden in concealed vehicle
compartments driven by U.S. citizens with U.S. license plates. In 2022,
88% of fentanyl trafficking convictions were of U.S. citizens.\12\ In
2021, U.S. citizens accounted for 86.3% of fentanyl convictions.\13\
Only 0.02% of people arrested by Border Patrol crossing illegally into
the United States possessed any fentanyl.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ U.S. Sentencing Commission, ``Quick Facts: Fentanyl
Trafficking Offenses,'' 2022, https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/
pdf/research-and-publications/quick-facts/Fentanyl_FY21.- pdf.
\13\ [Footnote not provided.]
\14\ David J. Bier, ``Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens by
U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers.''
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Traffickers also extensively hide fentanyl and other drugs within
legal cargo entering the United States through legal ports of
entry.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), ``2020 National Drug
Threat Assessment,'' March 2021, dea.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/
DIR-008-21_2020 National Drug Threat Assessment_WEB.pdf.
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Yet for years, CBP has been able to inspect only a small percentage
of the vehicles that cross the U.S. land borders. In 2019, CBP
acknowledged that it was able to inspect only 2% of all private
vehicles and only 16% of commercial vehicles at land legal ports of
entry.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Leandra Bernstein, ``Vehicle Scanning Technology at the Border
Is about to Ruin the Drug Trade,'' NBC Montana, August 29, 2019,
https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/vehicle-scanning-technology-
at-the-border-is-about-to-ruin-the-drug-trade.
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The Biden administration has appropriately sought to redress this
challenge by installing powerful scanners at legal ports of entry.
Their augmented efficiency allows for better visibility into individual
vehicles and their cargo as well as the scanning of more vehicles.\17\
Once the new scanners are deployed, the number of inspected vehicles is
expected to rise dramatically to 40% of passenger vehicles and 70% of
cargo vehicles.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Nick Miroff, ``U.S. Deploys Powerful Scanners at Border to
Fight Fentanyl Smuggling,'' The Washington Post, March 9, 2023, https:/
/www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/09/united-states-arizona-border-
fentanyl/.
\18\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But even with the installation of advanced technology to better
scan more vehicles entering through U.S. legal ports of entry, a
significant percentage of vehicles and cargo will still go unchecked.
Yet drug trafficking groups also utilize other smuggling methods,
such as tunnels under the U.S.-Mexico border and postal or courier
services. Increasingly, the smuggling methods feature drug trafficking
by boats on the seas and by drones across the land border with Mexico.
The very high potency-per-weight ratio of synthetic opioids and
improving payloads of commercial off-the-shelf drones make the
smuggling of fentanyl through this method increasingly feasible and
profitable.
A highly pernicious recent development is the establishment of
pharmacies in Mexico, particularly in major international tourist
areas, that sell fentanyl-laced drugs and other dangerous substances.
Proliferating in places such as the Mayan Riviera and Los Cabos over
the past 3 years, these pharmacies are physical buildings that appear
like other Mexican pharmacies. Yet they openly advertise drugs such as
antibiotics, anabolic steroids, and prescription opiates and sell them
illegally without a prescription. Investigative work by The Los Angeles
Times and separately by Vice discovered that drugs sold as Percocet,
for example, also contained fentanyl and methamphetamine.\19\ During my
June 2023 fieldwork in Mexico, shop assistants in these pharmacies
claimed they could mail any of these drugs to the United States without
a prescription.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Connor Sheets and Keri Blakinger, ``Fentanyl-tainted Pills Now
Found in Mexican Pharmacies from Coast to Coast,'' The Los Angeles
Times, June 14, 2023, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-
06-14/fentanyl-tainted-pills-now-found-in-mexican-pharmacies-from-
coast-to-coast; and Deborah Bonello, ``Cartels Are Using Pharmacies To
Sell Fake Pills Laced With Fentanyl and Meth to Unwitting Tourists,''
Vice, June 14, 2023, https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7bbxv/mexico-
pharmacies-fake-pills-cjng-sinaloa-cartel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amidst an already terrible drug epidemic, these pharmacies greatly
magnify the threats to public health. U.S. citizens have long been used
to buying medications that are too expensive in the United States from
Mexico. Unwittingly, intending to buy other medication, they may end up
buying drugs causing lethal overdose or addiction. The legitimate
veneer of these pharmacies also exposes a much wider set of potential
customers to fentanyl and other dangerous drugs, ranging from teenagers
to the elderly. Because the pharmacies aggressively target
international tourists in major vacation resort areas, they also export
the fentanyl epidemic to other regions of the world, such as Western
Europe. Many of these pharmacies are likely linked to the Sinaloa
Cartel and CJNG. Further funding the Mexican cartels and other drug
trafficking networks, a geographic spread of fentanyl use would augment
the global public health disaster.
The adulteration of fake medications with fentanyl and
methamphetamine is not the sole problem. The unauthorized sale of
antibiotics without prescription at these pharmacies also poses other
massive global public health, economic, and security harms, such as the
intensified emergence of drug-resistant bacteria.
Shutting down these unscrupulous pharmacies to minimize the
criminals' market access and to reduce exposure to customers is
imperative. Simply seizing illicit pills while letting the pharmacies
operate is inadequate. Shutdown and strong prosecutorial actions are
necessary against suppliers. Yet while these pharmacies operate in
violation of Mexican laws, in plain sight, and visibly saturate major
tourist areas, there appears to be little law enforcement action by
Mexican officials and regulatory authorities, such as from Mexico's
Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risks
(COFEPRIS).\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ In June 2023, COFEPRIS finally raided three such pharmacies in
Los Cabos, arresting 4 and seizing some 25,000 pills. See Brittny
Mejia, ``Mexico Raids Pharmacies in Probe of Fentanyl-Laced Pills,''
Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-07-
07/mexican-authorities-raid-pharmacies-in-inquiry-into-fentanyl-
tainted-pills.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
money laundering
The National Drug Intelligence Center of the U.S. Department of
Justice estimated in 2008 that Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking
groups earned between $18 billion and $39 billion a year from wholesale
drug sales.\21\ In 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
estimated bulk cash smuggling to Mexico at between $19 billion and $29
billion annually.\22\ Other estimates from the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime, research organizations, and news media have assessed
Mexico's drug export revenues to have been in the range of $6 billion
to $21 billion a year between 2010 and 2018.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ ``Illicit Finance,'' in National Drug Threat Assessment 2009
(Washington, DC: National Drug Intelligence Center, U.S. Department of
Justice, December 2008).
\22\ [Footnote not provided.]
\23\ See ``Estimating Illicit Financial Flows Resulting from Drug
Trafficking and Other Transnational Organized Crimes: Research
Report,'' (Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, October
2011); Beau Kilmer, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, and Peter
Reuter, ``Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico:
Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?'' (Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND Corporation, 2010); Gabriel Stargardter, ``Mexico's Drug Cartels,
Now Hooked on Fuel, Cripple the Country's Refineries,'' Reuters,
January 24, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/
mexico-violence-oil/.
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Mexican cartels utilize many money-laundering methods, among which
are illicit money-laundering systems such as the black-peso market,
trade-based money laundering, real estate, cryptocurrencies, casinos,
and bulk cash.\24\ Indeed, despite intensified efforts by the United
States to counter the flows of bulk cash to Mexico across the U.S.-
Mexico border across several administrations, extensive amounts of
illicit money and weapons continue to flow from the United States to
Mexico.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ Vanda Felbab-Brown's interviews with current and former U.S.
and Mexican officials and law enforcement officers, Mexico City, and by
virtual platforms, October and November 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cartels are also increasingly using a novel approach: Chinese
informal money exchange systems based out of the United States and
Mexico.
Although it is not clear what percentage of the cartels' illicit
profits is laundered through Chinese money transfer networks, U.S.
officials fear that the effectiveness of the Chinese networks' money
laundering is such that it is even displacing established Mexican and
Colombian money launderers and putting the flows of cartel money even
more out of reach of U.S. law enforcement.\25\ In some cases, a
particular Chinese money-laundering network managed to get itself hired
by both the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG; in other cases, they worked
exclusively with just one of them.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Drazen Jorgic, ``Special Report: Burner Phones and Mobile
Banking Apps: Meet the Chinese Brokers Laundering Mexican drug money,''
Reuters, December 3, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-
china-cartels-specialreport/special-report-burner-phones-and-banking-
apps-meet-the-chinese-brokers-laundering-mexican-drug-money-
idUSKBN28D1M4.
\26\ Vanda Felbab-Brown's interviews with U.S. Government and law
enforcement officials, Mexico City, and by virtual platforms, October
and November 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The increasing payments for drug precursors in wildlife products
coveted in China--for Traditional Chinese Medicine, aphrodisiacs, other
forms of consumption, or as a tool of speculation, such as in the case
of the highly-prized swim bladder of the endemic and protected Mexican
totoaba fish poached for Chinese markets--are particularly
worrisome.\27\ Other wildlife commodities used for money laundering,
tax evasion, and as barter payments between Mexican cartels and Chinese
precursor networks include abalone, jellyfish, and lobster.\28\ Instead
of paying in cash, Chinese traffickers are paid in commodities. The
amount of value generated by wildlife commodity payments, likely in the
tens of millions of dollars, may not cover all of the precursor payment
totals, but could cover a substantial percentage since the total
payments for precursors likely amount to tens of millions of dollars
also.\29\ Wildlife barter may not displace other methods of money
laundering and value transfer. But the increasing role of this method
can devastate natural ecosystems and biodiversity in Mexico as the
cartels steadily seek to legally and illegally harvest more and more of
a wider range of animal and plant species to pay for drug precursors.
In Mexico, poaching and wildlife trafficking for Chinese markets are
increasingly intermeshed with drug trafficking, money laundering, and
value transfer in illicit economies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Vanda Felbab-Brown, ``China's Role in Poaching and Wildlife
Trafficking in Mexico'' (The Brookings Institution, March 2022, https:/
/www.brookings.edu/events/chinas-role-in-poaching-and-wildlife-
trafficking-in-mexico/). For background, see also Vanda Felbab-Brown
and Alejandro Castillo, ``Restore US-Mexico seafood trade & save the
vaquita,'' Mexico Today, May 7, 2021, https://mexicotoday.com/2021/05/
07/opinion-restore-us-mexico-seafood-trade-save-the-vaquita/; Enrique
Sanjurjo-Rivera, et. al., ``An Economic Perspective on Policies to Save
the Vaquita: Conservation Actions, Wildlife Trafficking, and the
Structure of Incentives,'' Frontiers in Marine Science (August 27,
2021), https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.644022.
\28\ Vanda Felbab-Brown's interviews with current and former U.S.
and Mexican officials and law enforcement officers and Mexican fishery
experts and high-level fishery operators, Mexico City, and by virtual
platforms, October and November 2021.
\29\ Vanda Felbab-Brown's interviews with U.S. law enforcement
officials, Mexico City, and by virtual platforms, October 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the behavior of mexican cartels in mexico and in the united states
The connections between the illegal drug trade and the timber and
wildlife trade and trafficking from Mexico to China are all the more
significant as poaching and wildlife trafficking in Mexico is
increasing and Mexican drug cartels are expanding their role in crimes
against nature.
They are also increasingly taking over legal economies in Mexico,
including logging, fisheries, and various agricultural products such as
avocados, citrus, grain corn, mining, and water distribution in parts
of Mexico. Such takeover of legal economies by the cartels does not
merely entail extortion--enormously wide-spread as many businesses in
Mexico do not have the capacity to shield themselves from extortion by
Mexican criminal groups. These organized crime groups across Mexico,
especially the Sinaloa Cartel, often seek to monopolize the entire
vertical supply chain. Fisheries provide a prime example. Beyond merely
demanding a part of the profits from fishers as extortion, the criminal
groups dictate to legal and illegal fishers how much the fishers can
fish, insisting that the fishers sell the harvest only to the criminal
groups, and that restaurants, including those catering to international
tourists, buy fish only from the criminal groups. Mexican organized
crime groups set the prices at which fishers can be compensated and
restaurants paid for the cartels' marine products. The criminal groups
also force processing plants to process the fish they bring in and
issue it with fake certificates of legal provenance for export into the
United States and China. They charge extortion fees to seafood
exporters. They also force fishers to smuggle drugs.
Mexican criminal groups are also expanding into illegal fishing
outside of Mexico.\30\ There have long been suspicions about the extent
to which Latin American fishing fleets are also engaged in the
smuggling of drugs such as cocaine to the United States.\31\ The
penetration of legal fisheries by Mexican cartels further facilitates
their drug smuggling enterprise.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Vanda Felbab-Brown's interview with a top executive of a large
Mexican seafood exporter, Mexico, November 2021.
\31\ Vanda Felbab-Brown's interviews with Latin American law
enforcement officials, December 2017, November 2021, and February 2022.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Similarly, massive Chinese fishing fleets have long engaged in
illegal fishing, sometimes devastating marine resources in other
countries' exclusive economic zones. However, there also appears to be
a growing involvement of Chinese fishing ships in drug trafficking,
compounding the extensive problem of Chinese cargo vessels carrying
contraband such as drugs and their precursors as well as wildlife.\32\
And there is the possibility that Chinese fishing flotillas or
individual vessels operating around the Americas and elsewhere in the
world may carry spy equipment collection intelligence for China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ Vanda Felbab-Brown's interviews with U.S. Government and law
enforcement officials, October 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within Mexico, Mexican criminal groups often control extensive
territories where the government has only limited control and sporadic
access and some of which have become outright no-go-zones for
government officials.
They have also profoundly intensified their efforts to influence
elections at all levels of the government.
Indeed, the collapse of the rule of law in Mexico is profound and
goes far beyond the very high homicide rates; since 2017 more than
30,000 Mexicans have been killed per year \33\ while more than 112,000
remain disappeared.\34\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia (INEGI),
Defunciones por Homicidios, Gobierno de Mexico, https://
www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/olap/proyectos/bd/continuas/- mortalidad/
defuncioneshom.asp?s=est#; and Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema
Nacional de Seguridad Publica (SESNSP), Datos Abiertos de Incidencia
Delictiva, Gobierno de Mexico, https://www.gob.mx/sesnsp/acciones-y-
programas/datos-abiertos-de-incidencia-delictiva?- state=published.
\34\ Comision Nacional de Busqueda, Estadisticas del El Registro
Nacional de Personas Desaparecidas y No Localizadas (RNPDNO), Gobierno
de Mexico, https://versionpublicarnpdno.segob.gob.mx/Dashboard/
ContextoGeneral.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Mexico, Mexican criminal groups increasingly govern a large
scope of territories, economies, and institutions and a significant
number of people.
Because of the high effectiveness of U.S. law enforcement, in the
United States, Mexican criminal groups behave far less violently and do
not have the capacity to govern people, institutions, or territories.
The overwhelming majority of violent and serious crimes in the
United States are committed by U.S. citizens. For example, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 26,031 crimes were
committed in the United States in 2021 and 24,576 in 2020.\35\ Yet in
the fiscal years 2022, 2021, and 2020, which span the calendar years,
non-citizens in the United States committed only 62 homicides, 60
homicides, and 3 homicides respectively, according to CBP.\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center
for Health Statistics, ``National Vital Statistics System, Mortality
2018-2021,'' https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/
D158;jsessionid=A6B25FA1C3F284E8DEF7DC5C5846#Citation.
\36\ ``Criminal Noncitizen Statistics Fiscal Year 2023,'' U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-
enforcement-statistics/criminal-noncitizen-statistics.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indeed, even in Mexico, Mexican criminal groups intensely fear U.S.
law enforcement actions.
Yet the Mexican government has gravely undermined the capacity of
U.S. law enforcement to operate in Mexico. At the beginning of his
administration, Lopez Obrador announced a strategy of ``hugs, not
bullets'' toward criminal groups that sought to emphasize socio-
economic programs to deal with crime and address the causes that propel
young people to join criminal groups. But that strategy never
articulated any security or law enforcement policy toward criminal
groups. Worse, as the Lopez Obrador administration persists in its do-
little policy, Mexican criminal groups are resorting more and more to
brazen violence and impunity in Mexico.
Like other Mexican presidents since the 1980's, Lopez Obrador
reshuffled Mexican security institutions. Most significantly, he
abolished the Federal Police--because of its infiltration by Mexican
criminal groups, a systematic and pervasive problem for all of Mexico's
law enforcement forces for decades. (Since the 1980's, the many
iterations of law enforcement reforms have failed to expunge such
infiltration and corruption across Mexican agencies.)
In its place, Lopez Obrador created a National Guard staffed mostly
by Mexican soldiers and police officers from the former Federal Police.
However, the National Guard is not and could never be an adequate
replacement for the Federal Police. The Federal Police, with all its
faults, had the greatest investigative capacities and mandates, while
the National Guard has no investigative mandates and very little
capacity; it can only act as a deterrent force by patrolling the
streets, something that it has not been effective at, or acting against
crime in flagrancia. As a Mexican lawyer told me in 2021: ``The
National Guard are the most expensive mannequins in Mexico.''
Investigative authorities in Mexico are predominantly under the
Office of the Attorney General (Fiscalia General de la Republica, FGR),
the Federal Ministerial Police, and state prosecutorial offices. But as
with other law enforcement institutions in Mexico, the FGR's capacities
are limited, overwhelmed by the level of crime in Mexico, and suffer
from criminal infiltration, corruption, and political interference
despite decades-long efforts at reform.
The effective prosecution rate for homicides in Mexico continues to
hover at an abysmally low 2% and remains in single digits for other
serious crimes.\37\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ Catalina Kuehne Peimbert, et al, ``Impunidad en homicidio
doloso y feminicidio 2022,'' Impunidad Cero, December 2022, https://
www.impunidadcero.org/uploads/app/articulo/- 175/contenido/
1669895146I15.pdf; and Vanda Felbab-Brown's interviews with Mexican
security and legal experts, Mexico City, June 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Essentially, the Mexican president has hoped that if he does not
interfere with Mexico's criminal groups, they will eventually redivide
Mexico's economies and territories among themselves, and violence will
subside. That policy has been disastrous for many reasons: Most
important, because it further undermines the already-weak rule of law
in Mexico, increases impunity, and subjects Mexican people,
institutions, and legal economies to the tyranny of Mexican criminal
groups. But also because Mexico's out-of-control criminal market,
plagued by a bipolar and increasingly internationalized war between the
Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG, has little chance to effectuate such
stabilization.
mexico's inadequate cooperation with u.s. counternarcotics efforts
Just like with China, Mexico's cooperation with U.S.
counternarcotics efforts is radically eviscerated. The profound
hollowing out of Mexico's cooperation with U.S. counternarcotics
efforts is part and parcel of the overall lack of a security policy of
the Lopez Obrador administration. But it also goes beyond that.
In the spring of 2023, Lopez Obrador began falsely denying that
fentanyl is produced in Mexico, deceptive statements echoed at his
behest by other high-level Mexican officials and agencies.\38\ Blaming
fentanyl use in the United States on U.S. moral and social decay,
including American families not hugging their children enough (the
statement an apparent nod to his strategy of confronting Mexican
criminals with ``hugs and not bullets''), the Mexican president also
proceeded to deny that fentanyl is increasingly consumed in Mexico.\39\
With his statements, Lopez Obrador is not just unwittingly (or
knowingly) echoing China's rhetoric, but also publicly dismissing two
decades of a policy of shared responsibility for drug production,
trafficking, and consumption between United States and Mexico.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\38\ Ken Dilanian, ``Drug war cooperation between the United States
and Mexico is at its lowest point in decades. What went wrong?'' NBC
News, March 17, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-
security/no-cooperation-us-mexico-drug-war-rcna75093; Vanda Felbab-
Brown, ``The U.S.-Mexico Fentanyl Meltdown--Part I: The State of
Noncooperation,'' Mexico Today, March 19, 2023, https://
mexicotoday.com/2023/03/19/opinion-the-u-s-mexico-fentanyl-meltdown-
part-i-the-state-of-noncooperation/.
\39\ Mark Stevenson, ``Mexican president to US: Fentanyl is your
problem,'' Associated Press, March 9, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/
mexico-fentanyl-epidemic-overdoses-26f735a54ee0- ba075c394ce85aef03d0;
``Mexican president blames US fentanyl crisis on `lack of hugs' among
families,'' Associated Press, March 17, 2023, https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/17/mexico-president-fentanyl-hugs-
children-amlo#:?:text=%25E2%2580%259CThere%2520is%-
2520a%2520lot%2520of,said%2520of%2520the%2520US%2520crisis; Vanda
Felbab-Brown, ``AMLO's Security Policy: Creative Ideas, Tough
Reality,'' The Brookings Institution, March 2019, https://
www.brookings.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2019/03/FP_20190325_mexico_anti-
crime.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But that spring crisis was merely the visible tip of the iceberg of
how Mexico has eviscerated counternarcotics and law enforcement
cooperation with the United States during the Lopez Obrador
administration. When Lopez Obrador assumed office in December 2018, he
started systematically weakening that collaboration. From the beginning
of his administration, he has sought to withdraw from the Merida
Initiative, the U.S.-Mexico security collaboration framework signed
during the Felipe Calderon administration. And he sought to redefine
the collaboration extremely narrowly: U.S. assistance to Mexico was
intended to reduce demand for drugs in Mexico, while the United States
focused on stopping the flow of drug proceeds and weapons to Mexico and
reducing demand at home. Previous Mexican governments also certainly
sought a significant increase in U.S. law enforcement focus on those
two types of illicit flows but were willing to collaborate also inside
Mexico.
After the United States arrested former Mexican Secretary of
Defense Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos in October 2020 for cooperation with a
vicious Mexican drug cartel, Lopez Obrador threatened to end all
cooperation and expel all U.S. law enforcement personnel from
Mexico.\40\ To avoid that outcome, the Trump administration handed Gen.
Cienfuegos over to Mexico where he was rapidly acquitted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ Vanda Felbab-Brown, ``A Dangerous Backtrack on the U.S.-Mexico
Security Relationship,'' Mexico Today, December 21, 2020, https://
www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/12/21/a-dangerous-
backtrack-on-the-us-mexico-security-relationship/.
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But despite this significant U.S. concession, Mexico's
counternarcotics cooperation remained limited. Meanwhile, U.S. law
enforcement activities in Mexico became shackled and undermined by a
December 2021 Mexican national security law on foreign agents.\41\ As
Matthew Donahue, a former high-level Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) official, stated, since then and because of the continually
immense level of corruption and cartel infiltration in Mexican security
agencies, Mexican law enforcement spends more time surveilling DEA
agents than it does cartel members.\42\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ ``Mexico softens rules for controversial new foreign agents
law,'' Reuters, January 14, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
mexico-usa-security/mexico-softens-rules-for-controversial-new-foreign-
agents-law-idUSKBN29J24M.
\42\ Dilanian.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the threat of Mexico's unilateral withdrawal from the Merida
Initiative, the United States Government worked hard to negotiate a new
security framework with Mexico--The U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial Framework
for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities \43\--in the fall of
2021. The United States emphasized the public health and anti-money
laundering elements of the agreement, as the Mexican government sought.
The Framework reiterates multiple dimensions of counternarcotics
cooperation, including law enforcement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ ``Summary of the Action Plan for U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial
Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities: A Fact
Sheet,'' U.S. Department of State, January 31, 2022, https://
www.state.gov/summary-of-the-action-plan-for-u-s-mexico-bicentennial-
framework-for-security-public-health-and-safe-communities/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In practice, however, the Mexican government's actions and
cooperations on its side of the U.S.-Mexico border remain profoundly
inadequate, including and particularly in law enforcement actions to
counter the Mexican criminal groups and their production and
trafficking of fentanyl.
The U.S.-Mexico law enforcement cooperation has thus been only
limping. The Mexican government has conducted some interdiction
operations based on U.S. intelligence, and some collaboration has
persisted at the sub-Federal level in Mexico. While the DEA's
operations in Mexico remain hampered and limited, other U.S. law
enforcement actors in Mexico have been able to induce some cooperation,
with some Mexican government agencies even sharing some intelligence
with the United States.
Crucially, as DEA Administrator Anne Milgram stated in her February
Senate testimony, the Mexican government continues to be unwilling to
share samples and information from its claimed lab busts and fentanyl
and fentanyl precursor seizures.\44\ It is still not allowing the
participation of DEA agents, even in only an observer role, in the
interdiction operations it claims it has conducted. All of which raises
questions about the drug busts. Extraditions of indicted drug
traffickers to the United States from Mexico also remain limited.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Questions and answers period, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearing ``Countering Illicit Fentanyl Trafficking,'' February
15, 2023, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/countering-illicit-
fentanyl-trafficking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
There have been some recent improvements. Finally, at least some
senior Mexican law enforcement officials began acknowledging again that
fentanyl is produced in Mexico, an admission necessary for improving
U.S.-Mexico collaboration.\45\ In fact, the Mexican military now claims
that it seized 7 tons of fentanyl over the past 5 years and busted
1,740 drug laboratories.\46\ However, as Reuters' investigative work
showed, even in recent months, the Mexican military was fabricating and
manipulating drug seizure and bust data.\47\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\ Luis Chaparro, ``Mexico's President Says His Country Doesn't
Produce Fentanyl. His Military Seized 7 Tons in 5 Years,'' Vice, June
28, 2023, https://www.vice.com/en/article/93k3kp/mexico-president-
fentanyl.
\46\ Ibid.
\47\ Drazen Jorgic, Jackie Botts, and Stephen Eisenhammer,
``Exclusive: Amid U.S. pressure on Fentanyl, Mexico Raises Drug Lab
Raids Data,'' Reuters, March 17, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/
americas/amid-us-pressure-fentanyl-mexico-raises-drug-lab-raids-data-
2023-03-17/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crucially, even when labs are busted, little network dismantling
and few meaningful drug prosecutions follow in Mexico. Traffickers can
thus easily survive and recover from limited financial losses by
erecting new drug labs.
Overall, Mexico's law enforcement cooperation with the United
States has dramatically weakened and is still troublingly inadequate.
conclusions, policy implications, and recommendations
As vast numbers of Americans are dying from fentanyl overdose and
Chinese and Mexican criminal groups expand their operations around the
world and into a vast array of illegal and legal economies, the United
States finds itself in hollowed out and weak cooperation with both
countries. Below I offer some policy implications and recommendations
on how the United States can attempt to induce Mexico to better
cooperate with U.S. counternarcotics and law enforcement objectives. I
also provide suggestions for what law enforcement and policy measures
the United States can undertake independently, even if Mexico continues
to reject robust cooperation.
The structural characteristics of synthetic drugs, including the
ease of developing similar, but not scheduled synthetic drugs and their
new precursors--increasingly a wide array of dual-use chemicals--pose
immense structural obstacles to controlling supply, irrespective of
political will to prohibit and regulate their use, enforce the
regulations, and take actions against trafficking.
U.S. domestic prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law
enforcement measures remain indispensable and fundamental for
countering the devastating fentanyl crisis. It is likely that the most
powerful measures to address the opioid crisis are internal policies
such as expanded treatment and supervised use.
However, given the extent and lethality of the synthetic opioid
epidemic in North America and its emerging spread to other parts of the
world, even supply control measures with partial and limited
effectiveness can save lives. That is a worthwhile objective. The
Commission on Combatting Illicit Opioid Trafficking stressed that
targeted supply reduction and the enforcement of current laws and
regulations are essential to disrupting the availability of chemicals
needed to manufacture synthetic opioids.\48\ The commission also
highlighted how improved oversight of large chemical and pharmaceutical
sectors and enhanced investigations of vendors or importers in key
foreign countries can help disrupt the flow.\49\ The commission offered
supply-side control recommendations include reducing on-line
advertising, encouraging enhanced anti-money laundering efforts in
China and Mexico, enhanced interdiction efforts, and increased
international scheduling of at least synthetic drug precursors that are
only used for illicit purposes and enhanced control of precursor flows
through collaboration with China and international counternarcotics
organizations.\50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\48\ Commission on Combatting Synthetic Opioid Trafficking, The
Final Report, February 2022, https://www.rand.org/hsrd/hsoac/
commission-combatting-synthetic-opioid-trafficking: xiv.
\49\ Ibid.
\50\ Ibid: 36-44; and 54-57; 61-64.
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In its law enforcement engagement with the Mexican government, the
United States should prioritize:
shutting down Mexican pharmacies that sell fentanyl- and
methamphetamine-adulterated drugs;
not merely seizures and busts of laboratories, but the
actual dismantling of drug-trafficking networks, particularly
of their middle-operational layers that are hard to recreate
and the removal of which significantly hampers the ability of
criminal groups to operate and smuggle contraband;
and far more effective Mexican prosecutorial actions against
suppliers.
My recommendations below analyze and recommend tools to induce
Mexico to cooperate more robustly with U.S. law enforcement measures.
U.S. counternarcotics and law enforcement bargaining with Mexico is
constrained by the U.S. reliance on Mexico to stop migrant flows to the
United States. If the United States were able to conduct a
comprehensive immigration reform that would provide legal work
opportunities to those currently seeking protection and opportunities
in the United States through unauthorized migration, it would have far
better leverage to induce meaningful and robust counternarcotics and
law enforcement cooperation with Mexico and would be better able to
save U.S. lives. Nonetheless, even absent such reform, the United
States can take impactful measures that I discuss below.
inducing cooperation from mexico
Various U.S. lawmakers have proposed designating Mexican criminal
groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).
An FTO designation would enable intelligence gathering and strike
options for the United States military, such as against some fentanyl
laboratories in Mexico or visible formations of large Mexican cartels--
principally CJNG.
However, such unilateral U.S. military actions in Mexico would
severely jeopardize relations with our vital trading partner and
neighbor whose society is deeply intertwined with ours through familial
and other connections. Calls for U.S. military strikes against
fentanyl-linked targets in Mexico have already been condemned by
Mexican government officials, politicians, and commentators.
Meanwhile, the number of available targets in Mexico would be
limited. Most Mexican criminal groups do not gather in military-like
visible formations. Many fentanyl laboratories already operate in
buildings in populated neighborhoods of towns and cities where strikes
would not be possible due to risks to Mexican civilians. Moreover,
fentanyl laboratories would easily be recreated, as they already are.
Nor would the FTO designation add authorities to the economic
sanctions and anti-money laundering and financial intelligence tools
that the already-in-place designation of Transnational Criminal
Organization (TCO) carries. The latter designation also carries
extensive prohibitions against material support.
But an FTO designation could significantly limit and outright
hamper U.S. foreign policy options and measures. Clauses against
material support for designated terrorist organizations have made it
difficult for the United States to implement non-military and non-law-
enforcement policy measures in a wide range of countries, such as
providing assistance for legal job creation or reintegration support
for even populations that had to endure the rule of brutal terrorist
groups. To be in compliance with the material support laws, the United
States and other entities must guarantee that none of their financial
or material assistance is leaking out, including through coerced
extortion, to those designated as FTOs.
Yet such controls would be a significant challenge in Mexico where
many people and businesses in legal economies, such as agriculture,
fisheries, logging, mining, and retail, have to pay extortion fees to
Mexican criminal groups. The attempted controls could undermine the
ability to trade with Mexico as many U.S. businesses would not be able
to determine whether their Mexican trading or production partner was
paying extortion fees to Mexican cartels, and thus guarantee that they
were not indirectly in violation of material support clauses.
The FTO designation could also hamper the delivery of U.S.
training, such as to local police forces or Mexican Federal law
enforcement agencies, if guarantees could not be established that such
counterparts had no infiltration by criminal actors.
Instead, if the Lopez Obrador administration continues to deny
meaningful law enforcement cooperation, the United States may have to
resort to significantly intensified border inspections, even if they
significantly slow down the legal trade and cause substantial damage to
Mexican goods, such as agricultural products. Even with the significant
improvement in vehicle and cargo inspection expected to be reaped from
the scanning technologies the Biden administration authorized for
deployment at the U.S. ports of entry, a significant percentage of
vehicles and much cargo will still go unchecked.
Under optimal circumstances, U.S.-Mexico law enforcement
cooperation would be robust enough to make legal border crossings fast
and efficient. Joint fentanyl and precursor busts and seizures could
take place near the production laboratories and at warehouses. The
inspections of legal cargo heading to the United States could take
place close to the production and loading site in Mexico. Under the
Merida Initiative, the Obama administration, in fact, sought to develop
with Mexico such systems of legal cargo inspection inside Mexico and
away from the border. But if Mexico refuses to act as a reliable law
enforcement partner to counter the greatest drug epidemic in North
America, which is also decimating lives in Mexico, the United States
may have to focus much-intensified inspections at the border, despite
the economic pains.
But if the Lopez Obrador administration refuses to cooperate,
manual inspections, even though costly to Mexican--and U.S.--
businesses, should be mounted.
Effective border interdiction, however, requires meaningfully
resourcing U.S. law enforcement agencies at U.S. legal ports of entry
through which the vast majority of fentanyl enters the United States.
That means allocating sufficient resources for CBP port-of-entry
inspectors as well as high-tech scanners. Any reduction in CBP budget
allocation to inspections at legal ports of entry would severely and
perniciously intensify the flows of dangerous drugs to the United
States.
Furthermore, packages of leverage, including indictment portfolios
and visa denials, should also be developed against Mexican national
security and law enforcement officials and politicians who sabotage the
rule of law in Mexico, assist Mexican criminal groups, and perniciously
hamper law enforcement cooperation with the United States. Calls to
undertake such sanctions by Republican senators led by Senator Bill
Hagerty of Tennessee should be carefully and diligently explored.\51\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Adam Shaw, ``Senators Urge Biden Admin to Slap Sanctions, Visa
Bans on Mexican Officials to Force Action against Cartels,'' Fox News,
June 21, 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senators-call-biden-
admin-impose-sanctions-mexican-officials-force-action-against-drug-
cartels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
expanding and smartening up u.s. measures against criminal actors
Importantly, the United States has significant opportunities to
rapidly strengthen and smarten up its own measures against Mexican
criminal actors participating in fentanyl and other contraband
trafficking.
Already, the Biden administration has sought to intensify and
harmonize U.S. law enforcement actions against fentanyl trafficking. In
March 2023, for example, it launched Operation Blue Lotus to coordinate
cooperation across CBP, Immigration and Customs (ICE), Homeland
Security Investigations (HSI), and other Federal, State, Tribal, and
local law enforcement agencies.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ ``DHS's New Operation Blue Lotus Has Already Stopped More Than
900 Pounds of Fentanyl from Entering the United States,'' U.S.
Department of Homeland Security March 21, 2023, https://www.dhs.gov/
news/2023/03/21/dhss-new-operation-blue-lotus-has-already-stopped-more-
900-pounds-fentanyl-
entering#:?:text=Since%20its%20launch%20on%20March,states%20-
through%20Sunday%2C%20March%2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scaling up such efforts is necessary.
Some new anti-fentanyl law enforcement measures would also
simultaneously enhance U.S. measures to counter wildlife trafficking
and protect public health and global biodiversity.
But since Mexican drug cartels have diversified their activities
into a wide array of illicit and licit commodities, primarily focusing
on drug seizures close to the source is no longer sufficient for
effectively disrupting fentanyl smuggling and criminal networks
implicated in it.
Rather, countering other economic activities of the Mexican
criminal groups is imperative. This includes countering poaching and
wildlife trafficking from Mexico and illegal logging and mining in
places where the Mexican cartels have reach, acting against illegal
fishing off Mexico and around Latin America and elsewhere, and shutting
down wildlife trafficking networks that extend into China are
increasingly important elements of countering Mexican and Chinese drug-
trafficking groups and reducing the flow of fentanyl to the United
States.
To effectively counter fentanyl-smuggling actors requires a whole-
of-Government approach--not simply on paper, but truly in
implementation. A wide range of U.S. Government agencies should be
authorized to support U.S. law enforcement against Mexican and Chinese
criminal actors, fentanyl trafficking, and crimes against nature. These
include U.S. intelligence agencies, the Department of State, the
Department of Defense, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
Moreover, the focused collection, analysis, and reporting of
intelligence by a variety of U.S. Government actors against wildlife
trafficking, illegal fishing, and illegal mining could beget new
opportunities to understand the criminal linkages to foreign
governments, including China's, to confirm or dismiss concerns as to
whether Chinese fishing vessels carry spy equipment, and to identify
the crucial vulnerabilities of Mexican and other dangerous cartels.
To such end, crimes against nature should be elevated as a
collection and reporting priority of the U.S. intelligence community,
and within the U.S. National Priorities Framework.
Stove-piping in information and intelligence gathering across a
wide set of illicit economies should be ended. Gathered information and
intelligence should be shared with interagency analysis groups intent
on interdicting the illicit international flow of scheduled drugs and
endangered species. Such efforts could be enabled by significantly
increasing the number of USFWS special agents and by augmenting their
respective participation in interagency Organized Crime Drug
Enforcement Task Forces investigations.
The relevant intelligence on crimes against nature to understand
and dismantle criminal networks could include names, phone numbers,
license plates, courier accounts, bank accounts, and wiretapped
conversations. Conversely, countering groups perpetrating crimes
against nature could be productive in terms of freezing accounts and
visas to interdict the smuggling of drugs, guns, and humans that
they're conducting.
Enhancing intelligence collection and law enforcement action
opportunities stemming from such an expanded lens to cover all of the
activities, including crimes against nature, of dangerous and nefarious
actors, such as Mexican cartels and Chinese criminal groups, requires
enlarging the pool of USFWS special agents and uniformed wildlife
inspectors at the U.S.-Mexico border and transportation hubs within the
United States. The DEA appropriately enjoys strong capacities,
currently maintaining a force of 4,000 agents.\53\ In contrast, the
number of USFWS special agents has for years hovered at a mere and
insufficient 220.\54\ For years, this inadequate number has not
increased even though poaching, illegal logging, mining, and
trafficking in natural resource commodities have grown enormously over
the past three decades, are continually expanding, and increasingly
involve Mexican drug cartels as well as Chinese criminal networks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, DEA Leadership profile,
https://www.dea.gov/about/dea-
leadership#:?:text=As%20Administrator%2C%20'she%20leads%20an,foreign%20o
ffices%20- across%20the%20globe.
\54\ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Law Enforcement,
``Law Enforcement at a Glance,'' Fiscal Year 2022, October 28, 2022.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a corollary and imperative effort, U.S. law enforcement
agencies' legal authorities to counter wildlife trafficking should be
expanded. Importantly, wildlife trafficking should be designated as a
predicate offense for wiretap authorizations.\55\ Such expanded
authority would bring about multiple benefits: including the enabling,
understanding, and demonstration of the connections between wildlife
and transnational organized crime networks and foreign bad actors,
enhancing the ability to disrupt fentanyl trafficking, and allowing for
more expeditious and pointed prosecution of wildlife trafficking
crimes. Currently, Federal legislation at the foundation of wildlife
crime prosecution, at the core of which is the Lacey Act, often entails
proof of knowledge on the part of the defendant, a requirement that
wiretap authorization would greatly facilitate, in the interest of
prosecuting transnational wildlife trafficking and convicting criminal
syndicates.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ See 18 USC 2516, Authorization for interception of wire, oral,
or electronic communications.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many fentanyl-trafficking networks are not narrowly specialized in
fentanyl or drugs only. Many Mexican cartels and criminal groups no
longer solely focus on drug smuggling. Fentanyl smuggling networks have
powerful protectors among corrupt government officials worldwide.
Incentivizing better cooperation from the Chinese and Mexican criminal
governments is important. But particularly given the challenges in
inducing such cooperation in the current geopolitical environment and
given the policy orientation of the current Mexican government, it is
equally crucial to enhance the United States' own policy tools to
counter fentanyl-trafficking networks. Expanding the intelligence-
gathering aperture and mandating and resourcing a whole-of-Government
approach in support of U.S. law enforcement will save U.S. lives
currently decimated by fentanyl overdoses.
Chairman Green. Thank you, Ms. Felbab-Brown.
I just want to make a statement here. Look, witnesses as
well as Members of the Committee, we have some rules. Those
rules are that you direct your comments to the Chair. So if you
direct them to another Member on the dais or even within the
committee, we don't do that unless we ask for time to yield and
then you can ask a question. There are procedures on how to do
that. Your comments, especially for the witnesses, should be
directed to the Chair.
I want to make sure that is real clear.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Green. Yes, the gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Ivey. I appreciate that comment, but I really want to
raise a point of order here.
Chairman Green. OK.
Mr. Ivey. I don't think I have ever seen a witness
personally attack a Member like that at a hearing.
Chairman Green. OK. Let me just--here, I will clarify it.
You are no longer recognized.
Mr. Maltz, the better way to have said what you wanted to
say would have been to someone on the committee or to say, it
has been said that this is a waste of time, and you could say
that is offensive to me, there are Americans dying. You could
make the comment like that. But to direct it at the Ranking
Member is inappropriate, and I think everyone would agree with
that.
With that, I recognize--Mr. Carter, you are recognized.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Parliamentary inquiry. Shouldn't our role be to discourage
disrespectful behavior and not coach on how to do it more
appropriately?
Chairman Green. Look, no--hold on, hold on. Let me be clear
here. In previous hearings, we have had individuals attack
individuals on my side of the aisle, and I gaveled them down.
Mr. Carter. No, I----
Chairman Green. Hold on. You cannot address your comments
to an individual about an individual, but you can say Secretary
Mayorkas lied. But you can't say Secretary Mayorkas is a liar.
I know it is a subtle difference, but the rules are very clear.
The rules of the House are very clear on that. So the point is,
you cannot direct anything other than to the Chair. That is the
rule, and that is the rule we will live by.
Mr. Carter. And to preserve decorum and respect. Rather we
agree or disagree, no Member, Republican, Democrat or other, no
Member of the Committee should disrespect a Member of--that is
a witness. But what we witnessed a second ago was a direct
attack.
Chairman Green. Yes. Well, what--yes.
Mr. Carter. I appreciate you telling him he shouldn't have
done that, but I would like to go a step further. May I? If I
would, very respectfully.
Chairman Green. Yes, sure.
Mr. Carter. That we may----
Mr. Bishop. Look, if we are going to entertain a debate on
this, it needs to be two-sided.
Chairman Green. Hold on just a second, Mr. Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. If we are going to entertain a debate, I insist
that it be two-sided.
Chairman Green. Mr. Bishop, you hold on just a second and I
will recognize you in a moment.
Mr. Bishop. Very well.
Chairman Green. Don't do that again, please.
Mr. Bishop. I will be heard if we are going to hear both
sides.
Chairman Green. Mr. Carter, finish your comment.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
My only comment is that we should always preserve decorum
and respect. We can disagree without being disrespectful. You
think that is a debate, Mr. Bishop, I am sorry.
Chairman Green. You are disagreeing with me. I appreciate
that. What I am saying is there is a way to say things without
directing your comment against an individual. You can say that
Secretary Mayorkas lied, you can't say, Secretary Mayorkas is a
liar. You can say, I don't think this is a waste of time and I
am offended when someone suggests that it is a waste of time. I
think making that point clear is important for the whole
committee.
Mr. Bishop, you are recognized.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
At the outset, the Ranking Member said he was embarrassed
that we would undertake this hearing, that it was so worthless,
it was embarrassing to him. That witness responded to that
because it was an attack on that witness, every witness on this
panel and every Member on this side of the dais. I would like
to know why a Member of Congress, because he sits up here at
this dais, can feel free to disrespect people who come at our
invitation to testify by declaring what they have to say about
youth being killed by fentanyl poisoning across this country,
that that is not worth this committee's time. But a response to
that is objected to.
I will say another thing. Forensically, in every hearing
that I have attended where witnesses testify, they address
their remarks to the Chairman and to the Ranking Member. I have
never heard it done otherwise, I have never heard anybody
remonstrated for addressing the Ranking Member, and I don't
know why this would be the first time that would be brought up.
I object to it.
Chairman Green. We are not going to debate this.
Mr. Ivey. May I respond to that?
Chairman Green. No. I will advise Members that under Clause
1 of Rule 17 of the Rules of House, they must observe the House
standards of decorum in debate and conduct. They must speak and
act respectfully and may not use disorderly words,
unparliamentary language, such as words impugning the motives
of their colleagues, or words that are personally offensive.
I would encourage the Members to adhere to the House
standards of decorum and proceed in order. We need to get on
with this.
Members will be recognized by the order of their seniority
for their 5 minutes of questioning. An additional round of
questioning may be called after all Members have been
recognized.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
My first question is to Mr. Jones. The cartels have
essentially taken over a lot of the drug networks inside many
of the United States cities. Some headlines just in the past
few weeks about San Francisco alone, they basically have seized
control and are coordinating with the gangs to seize control of
drug trade in San Francisco. They have essentially taken over
all the criminal networks, much like a mafia. The Attorney
General, Merrick Garland, has admitted to the Senate that the
cartel strategy was to flood the Border Patrol and by tying up
Border Patrol, because Border Patrol now is doing basically a
catch-and-release system, then the drug cartels will slip
people around the other side.
Can you tell us how this policy of the open border and this
strategy of the cartels have combined to allow them to
basically take over crime in the cities?
Mr. Jones. Chairman, the way it works on your Southwest
Border, you hear the term all the time, operational control.
The problem is, no one ever tells you how the cartels have it.
That's what I'm going to share with you here today and to
answer your question.
That is that they utilize a network known as the Halcon
Network. Halcons are scouts, they're lookouts. They check on
and off just like law enforcement, anywhere from 8-hour shifts,
10-hour shifts, 12-hour shifts. I've seen them in South Texas
as far as 30 miles into the United States, I have seen them in
Arizona as far as 70 miles. They leverage two-way handheld
encrypted radio, sometimes encrypted apps, and they communicate
back to what is known as synthral. So what happens is you have
these lookouts everywhere. When what they call the gate is
open, the gate, meaning a bend in the river or a bend at your
border, when there is no law enforcement, they surge with
whatever commodity it is that they want to push. So when you're
talking about based on the policies of all of these migrants
that have come from all over the world, what is happening is
the cartel by design will push hundreds of people, as you have
seen on every news station over the last few years, and the
media focuses on that, that causes the surge of local, State,
and Federal law enforcement to that location. They do that by
design because it opens up the other gates. Now, if they're
going to move a commodity directly linked to a cartel boss,
they'll shut down more gates to ensure that commodity makes it
in.
What they do, Chairman, is they contract directly with
U.S.-based street gangs and what we call tier one gangs, those
are gangs which impact multiple regions in our country, they
work directly with the cartels. Today, it is very important to
understand your U.S.-based street gangs are working side-by-
side, contracting with the cartels. I could go on and on here,
but in 2009, eMe--Mexican Mafia--I was a lieutenant Laredo,
Texas over two major drug squads as the war broke out between
CDG and the Zetas, and we were stunned at what we found. We had
Mexican Mafia working in Mexico, working operations, going
through basic, intermediate, and advanced training from former
Special Forces and law enforcement, conducting hits in the
United States, and getting reduced costs of cocaine for that.
That is the way it really works.
So when you wonder today why you are being overrun with
drugs, it is because the tier one gangs and U.S.-based street
gangs are contracting and working directly with these cartels.
I will go back to this, and that is that they will not stop.
They can't. They're going to have to be stopped. We're going to
have to really take extreme aggressive action to fix this.
Chairman Green. How has the open policies, the basic catch-
and-release, and this stimulation of a mass wave of migration
by having an open border facilitated this process?
Mr. Jones. This is it. I want to be very clear here.
Historically, your cartels, the Mexican cartels, we call them
drug cartels because that's what they work today, they are in
over 54 countries around the world. This is not a U.S.-Mexico
problem, ladies and gentlemen. Cartel Jalisco New Generation we
know is in 48. This will not stop. Now they've transitioned
into the final version of human trafficking known as debt
bondage. I am holding it in my hands. This is it. This is how
emboldened they've become.
So I can't stress to you that you have to take extreme,
extreme action to go after these cartels and to truly create
relationships with Mexico and the rest of the world in what we
call a unified command and treat them as the dark networks that
they are.
I'm happy to discuss that with you as to how to go after
them.
Chairman Green. Thank you. I now recognize the Ranking
Member for 5 minutes questioning.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jones, you talked about that Congress should take
extreme action. Let me tell you what was in the last omnibus
package that we passed in 2023. We provided $17 billion for
Customs and Border Protection, including an increase in
spending by 17 percent over the previous year. It allowed for
hiring operations along the Southwest Border. We also provided
funding for 19,855 Border Patrol agents, an increase of over
300 agents, the most since 2011. We also appropriated $60
million more to hire 125 Customs and Border Protection officers
and mission support staff at our ports of entry.
But I would also tell you, not a single Republican on this
committee voted for it. It was passed only by Democrats. We are
the ones who are trying to put by the resources to the good men
and women along the border who are addressing this. Every time
an opportunity presents itself to put resources on the border
Democrats are the one who vote for it. You can talk tough, but
when it comes time, as a Member of Congress, you really need to
vote your conviction. So if you don't give the men and women
the money they need to help protect us, then that is our fault.
But thank goodness the Democrats in Congress gave the money
that was asked for by the Department. We need more.
I look forward to when the next time that people ask for
money, like I hear you talking about resources, that they will
vote for it, because that is the only way we can address this
problem.
The other situation, as I said, I have been on the
committee a long time. Responsible men and women can disagree,
but there is a way you can be disagreeable. I understand the
witness is on the Republican side. This is a great democracy,
and it is only great because of the men and women who live in
it. It is not a personal attack, it is just the facts.
I hope, Mr. Maltz, you understand that. But be that as it
may, there are some policy differences. I think 9 hearings on
this subject is a bit much. I am embarrassed at that because we
are wasting time trying to impeach a Secretary when we ought to
be providing our men and women along the border resources. I
have never voted against the Homeland Security budget since the
Department was created. I don't plan to ever vote against it
because it is not the right thing to do.
Now, I will disagree with this Chairman, I will disagree
with that Chairman, and we will probably continue, but we are
adults. I just think as long as we act as adults, we will get
things done.
People around the world look at us. They want to be like
us. But what I see happening and trying to disagree and trying
to somehow take it to another level, is just not who we are.
So, Dr. Felbab-Brown, can you tell me what kind of programs
you have seen that have been helpful along the border in
addressing this problem?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Certainly. Improving input technologies
so that inspections of vehicles, cargo, and people crossing the
border can be intensified is a very useful measure. The CBP
several years ago stated that it is only capable of inspecting
about 2 percent of personal vehicles crossing and about 17
percent of cargo vehicles. Raising that number to a much higher
level, especially because the vast majority of fentanyl is
seized and very likely smuggled through legal ports of entry,
is a good way of reducing the amount of fentanyl coming into
the United States.
It's not a sufficient policy. A whole-of-Government
approach needs to be adopted. Increasing collection
intelligence on a variety of activities that the criminal
cartels, Mexican cartels engaging, deploying various tools,
various agencies of the United States to be able to facilitate
U.S. law enforcement work.
Mr. Thompson. I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. McCaul.
Mr. McCaul. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Jones and Mr.
Maltz for your service, your law enforcement service in the
line of duty in very dangerous conditions. Mr. Maltz, I want to
thank you also for your comment about foreign policy because I
can't think from a Communist China standpoint a better foreign
policy than introducing poison through Mexico into the United
States, killing Americans and making money off it. It is almost
like a reverse Opium war. They see it that way. It has killed
70,000 young people, 20,000 pounds of fentanyl seized, enough
to kill 4.6 billion people. My children have been to 5 funerals
of their friends who thought they were taking Xanax or ADD
medication and they never woke up.
Mr. Jones, I know I commend you for being, No. 1, my great
State of Texas, what you have done. We know this better, I
think, than anybody. I remember going down after Mayorkas
rescinded Remain in Mexico. I talked to the Border Patrol
chief, and it was chaos. I said, what do you attribute this to?
Is there any cause and effect, a direct cause and effect
between what you are seeing now and what the policy change of
this administration? He said, Congressman, there is no question
there is a direct cause and effect between the rescission of
Remain in Mexico and what we are seeing today.
What else are we seeing? A human trafficking event of my
lifetime. I have never seen anything like this. I was a U.S.
Attorney at Western District of Texas at the Texas border, I
was a Chairman of this committee. We were, Ms. Vaughan, getting
this under control. We were controlling political asylum
because the cartels manipulate political asylum claims. When
the Remain in Mexico went into place, they couldn't manipulate
anymore. You know why? Because they couldn't get into the
United States. Their claims were adjudicated with them in
Mexico. Therefore, catch and release was ended finally. The
very first bill I introduced in Congress 20 years ago. Imagine.
Here we are today. It is alive and well, and this Secretary
is responsible, in my judgment. The rising crime, and the women
go into sex trafficking, the unvetted homes that these kids go
to, and the men go to MS-13. There is a criminal enterprise now
not just in Mexico and in Latin America, but right here in the
United States, and it was created by this administration's
policies.
So my question to the three of you Mr. Jones, Ms. Vaughan,
Mr. Maltz, do you believe that the actions of this Secretary by
rescinding Remain in Mexico, a policy that was effectively
working, that has created this criminal enterprise, do you
believe that this Secretary is responsible for and complicit
with the criminal enterprise that has resulted as a result of
these policies being rescinded?
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Yes, I do. That is validated by not only the
data from the United States Customs and Border Protection that
validates the numbers that crossed into our country as a result
of the exemptions created under Title 42, which Secretary
Mayorkas is the architect behind that. In addition, the
overdose deaths in this country due to the sheer impact to
mothers and fathers and families across this country. The data
validates it.
Mr. McCaul. One thing to add, the district court said you
must re-implement Remain in Mexico. The Secretary did not
comply with that order. He failed to comply with that order.
Ms. Vaughan.
Ms. Vaughan. I do believe that the Biden-Mayorkas policies
are responsible. A disaster. They're what's responsible for the
situation that we have today. No amount of money that is
funneled to these agencies is going to help the situation until
the officers and agents are allowed to do their job. The
policies at this point are more important than the money.
Mr. McCaul. In fact, they said, sir, we are turning our
backs on you because you turn your back on us, as I recall.
Mr. Maltz.
Mr. Maltz. Well, I say it starts at the top with the
President and it comes down. I just want to say that I make
these collages of these dead kids on my own time to help spread
the awareness. So the results are just dead children and
families going to funerals. That's what it comes down to. I'm
not an expert on immigration law or border policies, but I know
what's going on in America. That's why I'm here today.
So thank you.
Mr. McCaul. That is why we marked up a bill in my committee
to designate fentanyl as a chemical weapon under the Chemical
Weapons Convention, Mr. Jones. I will give us more authorities
to go after him.
I yield.
Mr. Bishop [presiding]. The former Chairman yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Correa,
for his 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I start with my comments, I wanted to submit for the
record, without objection, CBP release, June 2023. Just came
out yesterday, showing the lowest Southwest Border encounters
since February 2021. If I may read, total Southwest Border
encounters in June, including individuals who presented at
ports of entry with or without CBP One appointments were down
30 percent to 144,000. If I could submit that to the record,
sir.
Mr. Bishop. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
CBP Releases June 2023 Monthly Update
statistics show lowest southwest border encounters since february 2021
WASHINGTON.--U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) today
released operational statistics for June 2023, which show a significant
and continuing decline in migrant encounters along the Southwest border
as well as successful drug interdiction efforts resulting from new
enforcement initiatives. CBP's total encounters along the Southwest
border in June were the lowest in over 2 years, dropping nearly a third
from May.
``Our sustained efforts to enforce consequences under our
longstanding Title 8 authorities, combined with expanding access to
lawful pathways and processes, have driven the number of migrant
encounters along the Southwest Border to their lowest levels. in more
than 2 years. We will remain vigilant,'' said Troy A. Miller, CBP
Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner.
``As our June statistics show, CBP's mission is vast, and thanks to
the dedication of our personnel and Federal partners, we are delivering
results that keep the American people safe: ensuring border security,
seizing drugs, stopping the flow of illicit weapons, rescuing people in
distress, facilitating lawful travel and trade, and stopping the entry
of harmful agricultural pests.''
Below are key operational statistics for CBP's primary mission
areas in June 2023.
Ensuring Border Security and Effectively Managing Migration
CBP is processing all migrants under Title 8 immigration
authorities, and generally placing individuals who cross the border
unlawfully into Expedited Removal or Section 240 Removal Proceedings.
Noncitizens who cross between the ports of entry or who present at a
port of entry without making a CBP One appointment, are subject to the
lawful pathways rule, which places a condition on asylum eligibility
for those who fail to use lawful processes, with certain exceptions.
In June--the first full month since the lifting of the Title 42
Public Health Order--the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 99,545 encounters
between ports of entry along the Southwest Border: a 42 percent
decrease from May 2023. Total Southwest Border encounters in June,
including individuals who presented at ports of entry with or without a
CBP One appointment, were 144,607, a 30 percent decrease from May 2023.
These are the lowest monthly Southwest Border encounter numbers since
February 2021.
People who made the dangerous journey to cross the Southwest Border
unlawfully have died of dehydration, starvation, and heat stroke.
Smuggling organizations abandon migrants in remote and dangerous areas.
To prevent the loss of life, CBP initiated a Missing Migrant Program in
2017 that locates migrants reported missing, rescues individuals in
distress, and reunifies decedents with their families in the border
region. In June 2023, the U.S. Border Patrol conducted nearly 1,700
rescues, bringing the total number of rescues in fiscal year 2023 from
24,056 at the end of May to 25,735 at the end of June.
Safeguarding Communities by Interdicting Dangerous Drugs
CBP continues to interdict the flow of illicit narcotics across the
border. CBP has significantly increased non-intrusive inspection
scanning capabilities and forward-operating labs to swiftly identify
suspected drugs and recognize trends. CBP has found packages of
narcotics in roofs, floorboards, door panels, bumpers, tires, gas
tanks, car batteries, seats, speaker boxes, false floors, drones, and
more.
Nation-wide in June, seizures of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin,
fentanyl, and marijuana (combined, by weight) increased 7 percent from
May. To date in fiscal year 2023, CBP has seized more than 22,000
pounds of fentanyl--compared with 8,300 pounds over the same period in
fiscal year 2022.
To disrupt supply chains used in the development and movement of
fentanyl, CBP launched two new interagency operations in June:
Operations Artemis and Rolling Wave. A parallel intelligence and
analysis operation, Operation Argus, is providing trade-focused
analysis. These efforts build on the success of Operations Blue Lotus
and Four Horsemen, which seized nearly 10,000 pounds of fentanyl.
Operation Artemis began on June 5 and has made over 130 seizures,
which include:
21 pill presses and 54 pill molds
More than 5,000 pounds of precursor chemicals
More than 300 pounds of methamphetamine
And over 5,000 pounds of other drugs.
The U.S. Border Patrol is concurrently running Operation Rolling
Wave, surging inbound inspections at Southwest Border checkpoints. This
operation has seized:
More than 1,500 pounds of fentanyl
More than 1,000 pounds of cocaine
More than 8,000 pounds of marijuana
More than 6,500 pounds of meth.
Under Operation Blue Lotus 2.0, which launched on June 12, CBP and
HSI have also continued to surge resources to Ports of Entry, where 90
percent of fentanyl is trafficked primarily in cars and trucks. This
operation has seized over 1,500 pounds of fentanyl and over 23,000
pounds of other narcotics like cocaine, methamphetamines, and heroin.
Facilitating Lawful Trade and Travel and Promoting Economic Security
To improve the traveler experience while maintaining the highest
levels of security, CBP has increased the deployment of technology that
provides a more seamless and faster entry into the United States by
air, land, and sea. In June, CBP announced the deployment a new
Electronic System for Travel Authorization mobile application. CBP
continues to improve the travel experience and reduce wait times while
enforcing over 400 laws for 40 other agencies and stopping thousands of
violators of U.S. law.
Travel volumes continue to rebound globally from pandemic lows.
Travelers arriving by air into the United States increased 20 percent
from June 2022 to June 2023, and pedestrians arriving by land at ports
of entry increased 12 percent over the same period. Passenger vehicles
processed at ports of entry increased 11 percent and commercial trucks
increased 2 percent from June 2022 to June 2023.
CBP works diligently with the trade community and port operators to
ensure that merchandise is cleared as efficiently as possible, and to
strengthen international supply chains and improve border security. In
June 2023, CBP processed more than 3.1 million entry summaries valued
at more than $278 billion. CBP identified an estimated $7 billion of
duties to be collected by the U.S. Government. In June, trade via the
ocean environment accounted for 39.5 percent of the total import value,
followed by air, truck, and rail.
CBP One App
The CBP One mobile application remains a key component of DHS
efforts to incentivize migrants to use lawful and orderly processes and
disincentivize attempts at crossing between ports of entry. In June,
more than 38,000 individuals who scheduled appointments through the CBP
One app were processed at a POE.
Since the appointment scheduling function in CBP One was introduced
in January through the end of June, more than 170,000 individuals have
successfully scheduled appointments to present at a POE using CBP One.
The top nationalities who have scheduled appointments are Haitian,
Mexican, and Venezuelan. Beginning on July 1, CBP announced the
expansion of available appointments for noncitizens through the CBP One
app to from 1,250 to 1,450 per day.
Protecting Consumers and Eradicating Forced Labor from Supply Chains
CBP continues to lead U.S. Government efforts to eliminate goods
from the supply chain made with forced labor from the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region of China.
In the year after the agency began implementing the Uyghur Forced
Labor Prevention Act on June 21, 2022, CBP has reviewed a total of
nearly 4,300 shipments valued at nearly $1.4 billion. In June 2023, CBP
stopped 405 shipments valued at more than $239 million for further
examination based on the suspected use of forced labor.
Intellectual property rights violations continue to put America's
innovation economy at risk. Trade in counterfeit and pirated goods
threaten the competitiveness of U.S. businesses, the livelihoods of
American workers, and the health and safety of consumers. In June, CBP
seized 1,709 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more
than $120 million.
Defending our Nation's Agricultural System
Through targeting, detection, and interception, CBP agriculture
specialists work to prevent threats from entering the United States.
In June 2023, CBP issued 5,400 emergency action notifications for
restricted and prohibited plant and animal products entering the United
States. CBP conducted 97,101 positive passenger inspections and issued
678 civil penalties and/or violations to the traveling public for
failing to declare prohibited agriculture items.
CBP
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency
within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the
comprehensive management, control, and protection of our Nation's
borders, combining customs, immigration, border security, and
agricultural protection at and between official ports of entry.
Mr. Correa. I just wanted to, first of all, thank our
witnesses for being here today. I want to quote General John
Kelly when his Secretary of Homeland Security would say, border
security does not end or begin at the border.
Mr. Jones, I want to say I heard your testimony I listened
to it very carefully. I got to tell you, I really don't like
what you said. But as an individual that has worked a lot on
both sides of the border, I have to tell you, you have some
valid points. We do need some extreme solutions. We need to
coordinate with Mexico. We need to get it right.
Speaking to Mexican officials recently, and they reminded
me that just recently they had seized 46,000 bank accounts,
were blocked. The equivalent of almost $700 million of money
from organized crime, have entered into an anti-money-
laundering binational group with the United States, 1,600
members of the Mexican military today are deployed at 55
security points along the border, seizures recently, 7.5 tons
of fentanyl, 1,700 labs shut down, almost 74,000 criminals
arrested in Mexico. Then, of course, in January of this year,
the arrest of Chapo's son Ovidio Guzman, that erupted into one
of those gunfights that you are describing where 12 Mexican
Marines were killed. So I think the effort is there, but I just
don't think it is enough because this is an effort that is
going to require all of us working together.
Last week, Chairman Higgins and I introduced the bill,
legislation to really enhance, support homeland security's
investigation of transnational criminal units--I should say
investigations of transnational criminal units, Mexico, Central
America, and South America. Is this the kind of efforts do you
think that would help us really drill down and work with other
countries south of the border to identify some of these folks?
Mr. Jones. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
I will tell you that those statistics you gave are
fantastic and I applaud the efforts of all of those in Mexico
who are in harm's way. They have some incredible people working
to try to fight for their country. But none of this matters. If
you notice, not one cartel has fallen. As a matter of fact,
more Mexican citizens and more migrants have fallen to these
cartels and been brutalized like we've never seen before in
Mexico. You also see violence now spreading across the country
at levels where historically, sir, it was along our frontera,
with our border. Today it is across the nation of Mexico. Where
I'm going with that is I want you to know that the effort is
not near enough. Not even close.
Mr. Correa. You know, if I may interrupt you, because I
only have a minute left, but there is a new dynamic emerging,
leverage partnership dependence. Mexico is now our largest
trading partner in the world. We are going to depend on each
other for economic success, livelihood, and we need to work
together to address these common issues.
I have 44 seconds very quickly. Any thoughts how to move
forward on that?
Mr. Jones. I think that's a great point about how we can
leverage and work together because of that exact reason. They
are dealing with guns going south and military-grade weapons
coming north. We have a lot of areas that we can work with the
Mexicans and we should, as somebody that has done it. It is all
with relationships. But I want to tell you and be very honest,
there is a lack of effort in Mexico right now. They put a lot
of pretty paint on the wall. It means nothing and it is doing
nothing. You see it in the deaths of Americans, you see it in
the deaths of Mexican citizens and it's just pretty paint on
the wall that doesn't amount to anything.
Mr. Correa. I do hope we can engage in a transparent manner
to address these issues that do affect my citizens on Main
Street on a daily basis in terms of fentanyl deaths.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield. My time is up.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Higgins from Louisiana.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you ladies
and gentlemen for being before us today.
Let's see if we can clarify for the American people.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Maltz, I am going to go to you in my
limited time.
Mr. Jones, confirm please your former title in law
enforcement. We have here you were former captain of
intelligence and counterterrorism with Texas Department of
Public Safety, is that correct?
Mr. Jones. Yes sir, it is.
Mr. Higgins. So you have a great deal of expertise in law
enforcement, do you not?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. You are a resident of Texas?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. You know what is going on down there, don't
you brother?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Roger that.
Mr. Maltz, according to my information, you are a former
special agent in charge of Special Operations Division with the
Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA. Is that correct, sir?
Mr. Maltz. That's correct.
Mr. Higgins. You have a long history in law enforcement, do
you not?
Mr. Maltz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Where do you live, sir?
Mr. Maltz. I live in Virginia now.
Mr. Higgins. Well, congratulations, living off of the
border. You spent a lot of time down there in DEA operations,
did you not?
Mr. Maltz. Absolutely, yes.
Mr. Higgins. You know what is going on down there?
Mr. Maltz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Let's get to it, shall we?
Since President Biden was inaugurated and made perhaps the
poorest decision in the history of poor decisions by hiring
Secretary Mayorkas to enact his policy, because although
Secretary Mayorkas has a great deal of expertise, as you
gentlemen do as well, he has the added responsibility as the
Secretary to advise the President if the President's policies
are injurious to America. Once those policies have been
demonstrated to be clearly injurious to our country, the
Secretary, further reflective of his oath, has a responsibility
to step away from that administration if the President does not
abide by his advice when the President's policies that the
Secretary is enacting are clearly hurting our country. They
absolutely are.
Gentlemen, I am going to ask you a little bit about
cartels' access to our country. You both have conducted United
States operations in and with Mexico, have you not?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Mr. Jones, yes? Mr.----
Mr. Maltz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Yes and yes. The United States operations in
Mexico, must they follow United States law and be organized
with the Mexican government and Mexican law enforcement?
Mr. Maltz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Yes and yes, of course. So we have operations
in Mexico, law enforcement operations in Mexico, but we have to
follow the law, do we not?
Mr. Maltz. Right. If I may add, the best example of that is
the unified operation to capture Chapo Guzman on two occasions
working with the Mexican Marines. They did the operation, not
the United States. They went out and they grabbed them. They
had the courage to do it.
Mr. Higgins. Understood. I like your spirit.
So let's compare that to the cartels. Gentlemen, do you
consider it a true statement that the cartels have gained
unprecedented access and networking within the United States of
America? Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Yes. Yes, sir. I do.
Mr. Maltz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Have you seen this increase incredibly over
the last 2 years? Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Mr. Maltz.
Mr. Maltz. Yes.
Mr. Higgins. Roger that. Do they have to follow our laws?
Mr. Maltz. No way.
Mr. Higgins. Absolutely not.
Mr. Maltz. There's no fear. They're not going to go to
jail.
Mr. Higgins. They have unfettered access to the communities
of America, and they traffic in two things, drugs and human
beings. This administration has accommodated their efforts. Oh,
how can you say that, Congressman Higgins? Well, let me give
you an example. We have spoken a great deal about technology on
the border. My colleagues across the aisle stated, we don't
want a wall, wall is old tech, we don't need a barrier system,
we have technology. OK. First of all, that is in denial of the
fact that a physical barrier is part of a security system that
includes physical barriers to deter and delay an attempted
criminal crossing or trafficking of human beings and drugs into
our country. Second, let's talk about the technology. Much has
been said about drones being used. We have technology on the
border, was requested by law enforcement on the border during
the Trump administration, approved by Congress, funds
appropriated, contracts arranged for to detect and take down
cartel drones. That is called the detection and mitigation
capabilities of our anti-drone tech deployed on the border,
called the defensive and offensive operations of that anti-
drone tech. Somewhere since Secretary Mayorkas has been in
charge--and I promise you we will find the smoking gun--since
Secretary Mayorkas has been in charge, the offensive
capabilities or the mitigating capabilities of that anti-drone
tech has been suppressed.
Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, but my passion has not.
I yield.
Chairman Green. Sometimes Clay Higgins just says it the
best way.
I now recognize Mr. Carter--I think, is who is up next,
from Louisiana.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record an article titled ``Cadre of Nativist Groups: Figures
Have Long Pushed Replacement by Immigration Ideas into
Mainstream'', which explains how the replacement conspiracy
theory has inspired domestic terrorism and documents that the
Buffalo mass shooter cited by Ms. Vaughan's research is
justifying his domestic terror attack.
Mr. Chairman, this hearing is, unfortunately a sham. It is
a dangerous national platform that risks legitimizing the
extremist idea terrorists latch on when carrying out attacks on
the homeland. In this committee, all of us should frown on
that. So I would like to enter this to the record so everyone
will have an opportunity to read it, sir.
Chairman Green. Without objection, so ordered.*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The information was not available at the time of publication.
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Mr. Carter. Most migrants coming to our border have no
other legal pathway to the United States for citizenship and
are seeking asylum here because they have no other legal
pathway, which is their legal right. However, our system was
not set up for this kind of volume that we are experiencing,
and it is absolutely unsustainable, I think we all agree.
Dr. Brown, as director of initiatives for non-state armed
actors at the Brookings Institute, what are recommended
practices that can be used at our ports of entry to put human
rights at the forefront?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Congressman, thank you for your question.
Certainly, a comprehensive immigration reform that would
allow legal paths of entry into the United States would
immeasurably improve U.S. law enforcement domestically, as well
as it would improve capacities to induce partnership and
meaningful cooperation from vital partners and countries such
as Mexico.
In the mean time, increasing inspection is what is an
important measure, as well as recognizing that the cartels are
no longer singularly focused on smuggling drugs, but are
engaged in a whole variety of activities that require all of
U.S. Government response.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
We are witnessing a shift around the world of people
seeking asylum, safety, and economic prosperity. Individuals
are fleeing economic uncertainty, government corruption, and
violence. This is not only a struggle here in the United
States, but world-wide.
Ms. Vaughan, with your work for immigration studies, would
you agree that there is an unprecedented movement of vulnerable
people in the Americas and world-wide?
Ms. Vaughan. There certainly is unprecedented movement of
inadmissible migrants into the United States. That is for sure,
yes.
Mr. Carter. How is that impacting our points of entry?
Ms. Vaughan. It is overwhelming the men and women of the
Border Patrol and CBP to the extent that they cannot adequately
talk to migrants to detect trafficking, for example. They are
forced to process and release them as quickly as possible. It
is distracting them from preventing gotaways who are often the
bad actors, and the drug loads from coming into the United
States. It is creating chaos in border communities and
impacting the safety of those communities, it is compromising
the safety of the people who live along the border, who have to
deal with the cartels bringing loads of people and drugs
through their private property and threatening their lives and
well-being.
I mean the problems created by this open border are just
incalculable. And----
Mr. Carter. So how would we--we are all ears now and we are
presumably here to listen, to learn, and to do better. So now
we are all ears. How should Government interact with our
regional partners to make a difference?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, I think that United States needs to make
it clear to our international partners that this level of
migration, illegal migration into the United States cannot be
sustained. It's causing problems with our country, and that we
need to work together to address it and stop it. Because to the
extent that the criminal cartels are enriched and emboldened,
it affects civil society in their countries as well. It's
destabilizing to Mexico and to some of the other--Panama is
terribly destabilized because of the trafficking that occurs
through the Darien Gap.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Ms. Vaughan. They have an interest in working with us, too.
Mr. Carter. Thank you very much.
My time has expired. I yield back. Thank you, ma'am.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Bishop of North Carolina.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Jones, you are the witness I have been waiting to hear
for months and months in this committee. You talked about the--
and I forgot how you described it--ultra violence? What did you
say about--what did you call the violence?
Mr. Jones. Hyper-violence.
Mr. Bishop. Hyper-violence among Mexican cartels. I have
questioned witnesses here before about, in January in Culiacan,
I believe there was open warfare, 50 cal machine guns being
used, narco tanks driven by cartel soldiers against Mexican
army. This is the second taking or the second effort to take
Ovidio Guzman, I believe. You have said--I think it certainly
is--I have some concern about militarizing this dispute and
having the United States military take on the Mexican cartels.
I am open to the debate on that. But there is another aspect of
this that is of interest to me. I wonder if you can comment on
it, because the wristbands that you hold up testify to it.
You talked about bond--what did you call that--bondage
slavery?
Mr. Jones. Debt bondage, sir.
Mr. Bishop. Debt bondage, yes, sir.
So you got hundreds of thousands, or at least 150,000,
200,000 migrants entering per month, Mexican cartel has tabs on
all of them. We saw the headline the Chairman put up during his
opening statement from the New York Post that Honduran migrants
were operating the drug trade--or I believe is what they said
in San Francisco. Very troubled place, as you know. As they
bring these very vulnerable human beings that they have
absolute control over and knowledge of into the United States,
they are keeping tabs on them, these criminal organizations,
could they not develop the same sort of hyper-violence in the
United States that we are seeing in Mexico given sufficient
time?
Mr. Jones. They will. I can assure every Member here, if
you do not take action on this and change what we are doing and
look at them not as you are hearing, as criminals, but truly as
terrorist organizations and leverage the full weight of this
Government, it is coming here. I worked in 2015, the beheading
of an individual in Port Isabel, South Padre Island, that was
committed by a U.S. Border Patrol, working from the navel up
all the way up. His entrails were removed in his head, as far
as we can tell, was taken back to Mexico. I worked the 2013
lawyer where El Gato spent a million dollars putting tracking
devices all over his family's vehicles and then were able to
locate him in South Lake, Texas, and then executed him. So that
they are here, sir. They are here and they are among us.
Mr. Bishop. The people who have erased our borders as a
means of improving their voter population might--already have
gotten more than they bargained for I would say in the fentanyl
deaths I am going to ask Mr. Maltz about next. But they also
may see yet more. We may see the same sort of open militarized
conflict with our own law enforcement and military resources
here in the United States. That is what you are saying?
Mr. Jones. I have video that I've submitted to this
committee of 50 caliber rifles, fully-kitted individuals, on
Interstate 10, Tucson to Arizona, passing two Arizona State
troopers.
Mr. Bishop. The only thing----
Mr. Jones. I can go on. They are here, sir.
Mr. Bishop. My fellow lawmakers only decry the fact that we
are not spending more money letting that happen.
Mr. Maltz, I want to ask you, you ever been to Charlotte,
North Carolina?
Mr. Maltz. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bishop. You know the community just north, very
affluent community just north of there called Cornelius?
Mr. Bishop. Not aware of that, no.
Mr. Bishop. Hough High School. A member of a sports team up
there, young man died a week or so ago. They say that fentanyl
has pierced Hough High School in Cornelius, North Carolina. It
is happening everywhere, not just at the border, everywhere
across this country.
But there is something even--I don't know if you can say
more disturbing than that. I just watched the movie ``Sound of
Freedom'', and I would urge everybody to go see it. But the
problem of child sex trafficking is, I understand, at epidemic
levels as well. Been fed from places south of the United
States, but now in the United States we have children that--
600,000 children, minors come into the United States under the
policies Democrats have advocated, Secretary Mayorkas is
overseeing, 85,000 we have lost track of. These people are
showing up in factories and the like. But that is not even the
worst of it, it is the people being sold into another form of
bondage, Mr. Jones, sex trafficking. You keep up with that at
all, Mr. Maltz? The sex exploitation of children?
Mr. Maltz. Yes, sir. Because the cartels control it all at
the border. They have total control of the border. So they're
making money on all those young kids, those innocent kids.
That's why I commented before, because of all these rapes and
these assaults on these young children as they make the
journies up into the United States.
But one thing I would want to add is that Secretary of
Mayorkas did say that the fentanyl overdoses are the single
greatest challenges that we have in America. But my question to
everybody is then why would you reverse the policies that were
working before to keep those people out? It's the operatives
that are all over our country now running the business of
collecting money, of pushing the poison on the streets, and
they're getting right over the border. They have total control.
Mr. Bishop. If you think the problem is so insignificant
that it embarrasses you to consider it, Mr. Maltz, that would
be your answer.
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Thanedar.
Mr. Thanedar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the
witnesses who are here today.
Two months ago, the DEA confirmed the interception of a
massive shipment of over 20 kilograms of fentanyl during a
routine traffic stop in my beloved city of Detroit. Now, just
think about this for a moment. Fatal dose of fentanyl is only 2
milligrams. Now, if you look at this 20 kilogram seizure of
fentanyl, and if I do a quick math here, that 20 kilograms is
enough to kill 10 million people. That is almost the entire
population of my State of Michigan.
But let me clarify. This deadly drug finds its way to my
district because there is a name, an unattended addict, a path
of destruction waiting for it. That is the root cause of this
fentanyl crisis, demand for the opioid.
My message to my Republican colleagues is that the opioid
epidemic does not begin or end at our borders. This crisis is
not a border crisis, it is a public health crisis. We need to
focus on health care. By doing so, we not only save lives, but
also disrupt the profitability of these cartels. It is a win-
win situation. We can cripple their operation while healing
those trapped in this grip of addiction.
Dr. Brown, can you discuss how treating demand for these
drugs would hurt cartel operations while saving lives?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Thank you.
I stated at the beginning of my testimony that focusing on
treatment, demand reduction, and harm reduction approaches is
absolutely critical and indispensable. This is indeed what will
save us lives.
Law enforcement actions, both on the U.S. side of the
border and internationally, are also very important because we
do want to minimize the amount of flows to the United States
and also because the objective should be dismantling the drug
trafficking groups. However, expanding access to insurance so
that more people in the United States could receive treatment,
adopting the smartest most proven evidence based approaches so
that people are not dependent on sourcing illicit drugs on the
illegal market, so they are not dependent on sourcing illicit
drugs, period, is crucial. With that and a very important
element of that is also a significant over prescription of
legal opioids.
I want to go back to emphasizing another point from my
testimony. The real big danger currently of pharmacies in
Mexico that are brick-and-mortar buildings, look like any
pharmacies, and are selling all kinds of drugs, including
fentanyl- and meth-laced adulterated drugs to international
tourists such as U.S. citizens. They need to be shut down.
Mr. Thanedar. Thank you, Dr. Brown.
My understanding is that the administration is working to
expand its public health initiative to combat the fentanyl
epidemic. Do you view this as a necessary step?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Yes. The Biden administration deserves
enormous credit for framing a lot of our drug policy in terms
of public health. Significant genuine progress has been made,
and some of them precedes initiative already from during the
Trump administration with States, State legislature, and
Members of Congress, the U.S. Congress recognizing the need to
adopt much smarter, much wider strategies, such as the
availability of medications that reverse overdose.
Mr. Thanedar. Thank you, Dr. Brown.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Gimenez from Florida.
Mr. Gimenez. Thank you. Thank you very much.
In September, September 11, 2001, terrorists killed around
3,000 Americans and we went 7,000 miles, and we waged war for
20 years because 3,000 Americans were killed. Seventy thousand
Americans are being killed every single year by fentanyl and we
are doing nothing about it.
I had the director of the FBI sitting in that chair and I
asked him, do you think that we should be labeling the Mexican
cartels, the multinational cartels, as terrorists? He says
well, this is a technicality. Well, they are terrorists. They
are killing us. As a matter of fact, we only lost 60,000, close
to 60,000, people in Vietnam in 10 years of war. They are
killing 70,000 Americans every single year and they are right
across the border.
So my question to you, Mr. Jones, is this: Do you believe
that the Biden administration policies have strengthened the
Mexican cartels?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir, I know they have.
Mr. Gimenez. Do you believe that by strengthening the
Mexican cartels, we are actually not only destabilizing the
United States of America, but we are also helping to
destabilize Mexico?
Mr. Jones. Yes.
Mr. Gimenez. There is the crux of the matter. So we can
fund $10 billion and put CBP agents locked and armed 2,000
miles on the border, and unless we change the policy, nothing
changes. Is that correct?
Mr. Jones. That is absolutely correct. This is an
authority. This is not a money issue any longer. We, as lawmen,
do not have the authorities we have needed to go after these
cartels. That is the problem. I don't believe in going to war
with the cartels. They are dark networks, Congressman. The way
we win against them is giving us the authority for full
spectrum operations, leveraging our full U.S. intelligence
agencies, law enforcement and military, but mostly clandestine
operations. How you go after the Sinaloa cartel as a network
will be much different as to how we go after the Gulf Cartel
del Noreste and many others, because these networks are
different and we have to fight in the future differently than
we have in the past.
Mr. Gimenez. I agree. But also we need to change our policy
so that the migrants who are coming through, who think they can
get into the United States, that are paying them their passage,
deprives them of that revenue and makes them weaker. Is that
correct?
Mr. Jones. It does. But you also need to understand these
cartels are global. You hear all the time that right now
they're making billions of dollars off of the human trafficking
of people. That's absolutely true. They're making more than
they are off of drugs. But when you look at them in the
totality today, look at why Cartel Jalisco New Generation has
risen so quickly, so fast. Because they began moving their
narcotics overseas to Europe, Russia, and Australia, making
hundreds of thousands of dollars. Literally, one kilo at one
time in Australia was $180,000. This is why their rise is so
massive. But what are you always told by these so-called
experts? That these cartels--listen, if you just legalize,
it'll all go away. Look at what has happened to us.
Mr. Gimenez. You are right. This is not a simple answer to
the problems that we face in the United States, but we need to
view them as adversaries. We need to view them as people that
are killing Americans, 70,000 a year.
Look, I was in the streets of Miami. I am a paramedic. That
is my craft, all right So in the 1970's and the 1980's they
responded to overdoses left and right, all the time, and
overdoses with opioids. But they weren't laced with this
poison. This poison hooks them, makes it much more addictive,
and then it kills us. We have to do something about it. What
the Biden administration is doing is not doing very much to
protect American lives. That is the duty of Government. The
duty of Government is to protect the lives of American
citizens. In this respect, the Biden administration and this
Secretary is failing miserably.
Much has been said about the decrease in the number of
migrants that are coming through the border. Now, from the
height and yes, maybe it was, but the number that I got, the
last in February 2020, only 36,000 migrants were encountered at
the border. Now we are looking at as 100,000 as being a good
number, 150,000 being a good number. It is an utter disaster
what is happening at the border--it is an utter disaster what
is happening at the border.
One final thought. My colleagues across the aisle think
that everything can be solved by throwing money at it, and it
cannot. In this case, the best thing we can do is change the
policies. By changing the policies, you will then
disincentivize the migrants from coming into the United States,
deprive the cartels of the money that they get from them, and
then we can start focusing in on destroying the cartels, which
are the source of the fentanyl, which is killing 70,000
Americans every single year.
I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
Without objection, the title of Ms. Vaughan's testimony
submitted for the record has to be stricken. The wording of
that title makes an accusation against the President and the
Secretary that they are accomplices to crime, and we have to
strike that.
So, without objection, the title of that testimony is
stricken.
We will move to the next question.
I now recognize Mr. Magaziner for 5 minutes.
Mr. Magaziner. Well, thank you, Chairman.
The American people want us to work together in a
bipartisan way to solve the Nation's problems and to strengthen
our security. But instead, we are here for yet another episode
of impeachment theater, the latest installment in House
Republicans' plans to impeach someone, anyone, from the Biden
administration. It is disappointing and the facts don't support
it.
The premise of the argument--and we all know that this is
where this is headed--the premise of the argument is something
like this, that Secretary Mayorkas, President Biden are
breaking the law because they are not attempting to stop
transnational criminal activity at the border. Unfortunately
for my colleagues, the facts are not on their side.
Here is just a sample of the actions that the Biden
administration has taken to combat transnational criminal
organizations at the border. In 2021, Secretary Mayorkas
launched Operation Sentinel, a collaborative, inter-agency
effort to disrupt logistical networks of criminal
organizations. Also in 2021, the administration launched Joint
Task Force Alpha to enhance U.S. enforcement efforts against
smuggling and trafficking groups operating in Mexico and in the
Northern Triangle countries. December 2021, President Biden
issued Executive Order 14060, establishing the United States
Council on Transnational Organized Crime. The Executive Order
outlined a policy for the United States to combat TCOs and
established a council to monitor the production and
implementation of coordinated strategic plans to do just that.
President Biden signed legislation to increase funding for
border security, for better technology at points of entry, for
more Border Patrol agents. In almost every case, our Republican
colleagues who were there last year voted against this
legislation. This year, the Biden administration launched
operation Blue Lotus and operation Four Horsemen, inter-agency
surges of operations to seize narcotics, investigate crimes,
and investigate dangerous individuals associated with TCOs. In
just 2 months, those operations seized nearly 10,000 pounds of
fentanyl and more than 10,000 pounds of other narcotics, like
cocaine and methamphetamines. In the last week alone, Operation
Blue Lotus arrested 284 people on fentanyl charges.
I can keep going. Secretary Mayorkas launched Operation
Artemis to target precursor chemicals, pill presses and parts,
and finished substances involved in fentanyl. Secretary of
State Blinken, who some of our colleagues are also trying to
impeach, organized a ministerial meeting with more than 80
countries to launch a global coalition to address synthetic
drug threats, a world-wide effort led by the United States to
disrupt fentanyl supply chains. In April, the Biden
administration's Justice Department announced charges against
28 Sinaloa cartel leaders. Of course, most importantly, since
the expiration of Donald Trump's Title 42 policy, illegal
border crossings are down more than 50 percent. That is on
President Biden's watch.
So, listen, we can all have our own opinions about whether
the administration is doing a good job or not. Everybody is
entitled to those opinions. But if your core argument is that
the Biden administration is breaking the law by not trying to
disrupt TCOs, the facts don't support it. We are going to keep
having this debate, apparently for months to come, but that is
the central point.
Here is what it all boils down to. Even though the
administration have taken numerous actions to address the
challenges at the border, detaining criminals, seizing drugs,
some of our colleagues are just hell-bent on impeaching a
Cabinet Secretary for the first time in 150 years. For some,
this has been the plan all along. House Republicans first
introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas 2
years ago, when the guy had only been in office for a couple
months. They have been gushing to their donors about
impeachment behind closed doors before they even took control
of the House and before any of these investigations even began,
even though there is no legal basis.
So, look, the American people want us to work together to
secure the border on a bipartisan basis. There are things that
we could be doing. We should invest in technology and
personnel, we should strengthen our relationships with allies
in the region who are key partners in this fight, we can reform
the immigration system to make it more orderly, we can finally
do something about the guns across the border from the United
States of Mexico, which is a part of this problem that our
colleagues don't ever want to talk about. But in order for us
to move forward in a productive way, impeachment theater has to
stop so that we can get to work for the American people.
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Ms. Lee from Florida for 5 minutes.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Vaughan, I would like to return to your testimony. You
touched on a subject that I think is a very important aspect of
what we are here to discuss today, and that is human
trafficking and how these policies are affecting women and
girls and children who are being trafficked. Specifically, you
used the phrase in your opening that these kids go into the HHS
assembly line with few questions being asked. I would like to
focus a bit there. It is correct, is it not, that when that
happens, we have seen numerous incidents of children who are
actually put into placements in homes that prove to be unsafe?
Ms. Vaughan. Absolutely, yes. There are a number of
instances where, for example, girls have been placed with older
men in what is clearly an exploitative situation. There are
kids who have been turned over to labor traffickers, there are
kids who get turned over to gang members, there are kids who
get placed into domestic servitude and other forms of abuse.
It's really quite horrific.
Ms. Lee. Well, and I know we have also seen cases where--
and this happened even in my own State--if the children
themselves aren't screened, that can pose a danger or an
inappropriate circumstance for a host family. Is that also
correct?
Ms. Vaughan. Yes. There are problems at some of the
shelters, sometimes incidents of predatory behavior on the
other kids who are housed there until their release. There was
the case in Jacksonville where the alleged minor, who turned
out to be 24 years old, because the Border Patrol is not able
to really screen people, murdered his sponsor.
Ms. Lee. In your opinion, after children are placed in
these sponsor homes, is there an adequate level of follow-up
and supervision that is occurring by HHS?
Ms. Vaughan. Absolutely not. There's almost no supervision
or follow-up that goes on. These standards that they have for
not only placements but also post-placement services, are way,
way inferior to the procedures that every State in the Union
uses for foster care placements, for example. It's been said
that it is harder to adopt a cat than it is to sponsor an
unaccompanied minor. There are rarely background checks done,
almost never home studies, no financial assessments. The Biden
administration has stopped doing background checks on other
people in the households to make sure that the placements are
safe. This is something that simply would not be tolerated in
our foster care system.
Ms. Lee. You also mentioned that roughly a one-fourth of
the trafficking victims were children. Would you tell us a
little bit more about that and the patterns that you see that
are affecting young people and children that are coming to this
country?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, what happens is the smugglers often
either convince the parents of these kids that they're going to
have a better life in the United States, so pay us a down
payment on the smuggling fee now and the child will make enough
money or be able to go to school or some other tale to get the
parents to release the kid who, when they get to the United
States, are released to a sponsor who turns out to be a
trafficker or are put directly into trafficking situations.
Sometimes it's forced labor trafficking, sometimes it's
commercial sex, sometimes it's domestic servitude. But the
child is isolated from their family members in the complete
control of the people who have custody of them. There's no
monitoring of the situation by the Federal Government that put
them in this situation. There is very little opportunity for
seeing what's going on in some of these workplaces to rescue
the kids. It's a lot of, frankly, hear no evil, see no evil,
there must not be any. Really deliberately kind-of looking the
other way at what is happening.
Ms. Lee. Thank you Ms. Vaughan.
Agent Maltz, I want to return to you. You used a phrase in
your written--which is important and I want to be sure that we
today hear the distinction that you make as someone who spent
so many years with DEA. The distinction is between drug
traffickers, which is something that we have seen obviously for
many decades coming across our Southern Border, but you use the
phrase narco-terrorist. Would you please explain to us the
distinction between a drug trafficker and a narco-terrorist?
Mr. Maltz. Well, a drug trafficker is in the business to
make money only. The cartels, when I first started to work, we
know them as drug traffickers, right? But they've evolved from
drug traffickers to transnational criminals. But now they're
narco-terrorists. Just look at the death and destruction of
what they're doing in that country. I mean when I was the head
of the Special Operations Division, I kept on my phone the
greatest hits of the violence in Mexico with the head, the
decapitations, the chopping off limbs, throwing people in acid.
They used to have a guy called the stew maker. He would drop--
they were never found. That's why in Mexico today there's so
many disappearances. They don't want to put that out because
it's going to deter any tourism in Mexico. But these cartels--I
mean Jaeson can tell you, he reports on it every week, every 2
weeks. They got tanks, they got rockets, they got drones that
drop explosives. That's another thing that makes me concerned
as a citizen because as our brave men and women are on the
border, what happens if one day they drop the explosives on our
own people? Right?
So these guys have evolved to the point where--I mean
they're a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, they have plenty of
money, they have no rules, they have no bureaucracy. So I'm
very concerned about their evolution and the lack of the way we
deal with them.
Ms. Vaughan. Thank you, Agent Maltz.
I am out of time.
Mr. Chairman I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlewoman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Ivey.
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Got a lot of ground to cover. I do want to start off with
agreeing with Mr. Magaziner with respect to the--we have got
sort-of two tracks of things going on here. One is there is an
impeachment track that is pretty obvious that--the dereliction
of duty language dovetails exactly with Ms. Greene's HRS 598,
which has articles to impeach President Biden. So we know that
is part of what is going on. But the fact that you all are here
as a panel, I do have some questions I want to ask you.
I appreciate we may have some differing views, but I do
want to try and figure out some of the things that are going on
here, because I do think we have a duty to try and address the
problems that we have got.
Ms. Vaughan, you mentioned Prince George's County, and I
was the State's attorney there, the local prosecutor. One of
the groups that we prosecuted was MS-13 repeatedly. In fact, we
did a joint prosecution with the U.S. attorney at the time,
President Trump's deputy attorney general. A lot of the stuff
that they were doing looks a lot like some of the things we are
talking about now. The human trafficking piece, the
prostitution up and down the coast, the enforcers, the money
and all of that.
So, Mr. Jones, I want to come to you at some point too, but
I do wonder about some of the differences that seem to be
there.
Mr. Maltz, I think you kind-of touched on this, but in the
old days, and I will put myself in that category, the sale of
drugs, they weren't trying to kill their customers, basically.
So they would sell addictive drugs, cocaine, heroin, whatever,
but they weren't necessarily killing them off. Fentanyl seems
fundamentally different to me in the sense that, yes, it is
extremely addictive, more addictive than those, but it is also
the fatality rates are incredibly high. The things I would like
to try and figure out if we get a chance to move to a hearing
on that front would be why that change in the business model
has taken place.
Mr. Jones, I want to get a--I might have to ask you all to
send in a written response or something just because I am
almost halfway through my time. Mr. Jones, to you, you have
made a couple references to, I think, essentially military
action, I think was the way you phrased it. Need more authority
and more tools beyond law enforcement was one. Then in your
last answer that you gave a few minutes ago, you mentioned
explicitly wanting to have the military get involved in the
pushback against the cartels.
I will pause for this answer. What exactly do you have in
mind on that front?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir. What I'm talking about is the tools of
national power. Here, what I mean by it. Our system by design,
as you know, as a former prosecutor, moves very slow. It's
exactly how we want it under our Fourth Amendment.
Mr. Ivey. Let me ask you to cut to the chase, because I am
down to a minute-and-a-half. What exactly--because military
involvement is a very big step.
Mr. Jones. If we operate beyond the investigative model
what it allows us to do is go after their assets and their
money, real-time versus work in 2-year cases. It allows us to
limit them mobility globally around the world just to Mexico,
because now you can't get on aircraft, you can't get on boats.
Third, it allows us to remove them who are here on visas,
because most of you would be stunned. They have the money for
visas. So it puts speed in the system and gives us tools. Now
we go after the network and that's how we win.
Mr. Ivey. Let me reclaim my time. I don't know that you
need the military to do any of those three things. I think the
Department of Justice does that currently. But we can maybe
discuss that at another time.
I also had a question to Mr. Maltz. You mentioned working
with China and I think Mexico. Here at a previous hearing--I
can't remember if it is Mr. Higgins or Mr. Bishop, but we had
someone at the--I want to say it was the White House that also
said the importance of getting involved with China, especially
in blocking the amount of precursors that are coming out of
China and going to Mexico. Because when the relationship
between the United States and China broke off a few years ago,
China stopped enforcing the exportation of precursors that led
to the really explosion of the availability of that in Mexico.
That witness' thought was that--part of the answer was going to
be that we needed to work with China to address that.
With respect to Mexico--I am running out of time--but, Mr.
Jones, you mentioned another issue too, which was money. You
are the first witness I have heard in one of these hearings to
say more money isn't the issue. We have had CBP and those guys
come up and talk about we need more agents, we need everything
really, because they are outgunned in a variety of ways. So I
guess I will have to get that from you later on.
I would ask for unanimous consent to offer a couple of
articles, ``How to Stop the Mexican Cartels: Stop Supplying
Them With Guns''**--Which I think was a point you made, Mr.
Jones--``On Biden's Border Policy Critics Both Left and Right
Are Wrong'', ``Southern Border Eerily Quiet After Policy Shift
on Asylum Seekers''.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
** The information was not available at the time of publication.
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Chairman Green. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Article, The Washington Post
opinion: on biden's border policy, critics both left and right are
wrong
By the Editorial Board
July 14, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. EDT
Uncontrolled migration across the U.S.-Mexico border is not in
anyone's interest except, perhaps, for the smugglers who profit by
charging people to make the difficult and dangerous trek. After much
hesitation, during which unauthorized attempted border crossings
reached an all-time high of 2.76 million in fiscal 2022, the Biden
Administration acted to stem the flow and redirect it into lawful, more
manageable channels. Initial data from the Department of Homeland
Security shows progress: Daily Border Patrol encounters with migrants
fell from 10,000-plus just before May 11, when the policy went into
effect, to 3,400 in early June. Set forth in regulations finalized May
10, the plan seems to be preventing the border chaos many had feared
would follow expiration of emergency powers under Title 42, a public
health law that had allowed Federal authorities to expel migrants
summarily during the pandemic.
There's a catch, though: President Biden's policy has to be
consistent with Federal law. And critics from both ends of the
political spectrum have gone to Federal court arguing that it's not. On
July 19, a judge in Oakland, Calif., is set to hear a coalition of
immigrants' rights advocates, headed by the American Civil Liberties
Union, who claim, in effect, that the Biden plan unlawfully truncates
the right to asylum. Meanwhile, red States, headed by Texas, accuse the
administration of the opposite: letting in hundreds of thousands of
migrants without sufficient legal authority.
The courts should let the administration's approach, which includes
a 2-year time limit, run its course. Some of the legal arguments
against it are serious. Yet, so is the Biden administration's case:
that the President is trying to address a major problem through a
pragmatic exercise of his existing authority.
Essentially, the new policy offers migrants incentives and
disincentives--carrots and sticks--the net effect of which is to
discourage irregular border-crossing. The disincentive, framed as a
``rebuttable presumption'' against entry, is swift expulsion and a 5-
year bar on reentry for those who cross between ports of entry without
first seeking asylum in a third country en route. The incentive is that
these tough conditions do not apply to migrants who first make
appointments using a cellphone app to apply for asylum at ports of
entry and wait in Mexico for their turn. The rule contemplates advance
processing for asylum in a third country as well. Separately, it offers
30,000 people per month from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti--
main sources of the 2022 border surge--direct access to the United
States via 2-year humanitarian parole, provided they have a U.S.
sponsor.
______
Article Submitted by Ranking Member Glenn Ivey
southern border `eerily quiet' after policy shift on asylum seekers
By Nick Miroff and Toluse Olorunnippa
July 12, 2023 at 6 o'clock a.m. EDT
EL PASO--On the border bridge from Mexico, about 200 asylum seekers
lined up on a recent morning with their phones open to a Customs and
Border Protection mobile app, ready for appointments at a reception
hall on the U.S. side.
Thirty miles north, the Biden administration provided a different
reception for those attempting to enter the United States illegally,
bringing them to a massive tent complex in the desert for migrants
facing deportation. The new 360,000-square-foot facility's shelves were
stocked with diapers, snacks and baby formula, signs of the
administration's efforts to meet the changing demands of U.S.
immigration enforcement.
The two locations illustrate the extent to which Biden
administration officials have begun transforming the way asylum seekers
and migrants are processed along the southern border since May 11, when
the White House lifted the pandemic policy known as Title 42. The
policy had allowed quick expulsions of migrants who entered the United
States illegally but no penalty for those who tried to get in again and
again.
Now the administration is allowing tens of thousands of migrants to
enter the United States legally each month through the mobile app CBP
One, while those who don't follow the rules face ramped-up deportations
and tougher penalties.
The preliminary result is a nearly 70 percent drop in illegal
entries since early May, according to the latest U.S. Customs and
Border Protection data. After 2 years of record crossings and crisis-
level strains, the Biden administration appears to have better control
over the southern border than at any point since early 2021.
The president's critics continue to depict his border policies as
too permissive--geared more toward accommodating mass migration than
deterrence. But the decline in illegal crossings undermines a key line
of attack for President Biden's Republican critics and bolsters
Democrats' argument that the pandemic expulsion policy was partly to
blame for record numbers of border arrests.
Administration officials acknowledge it is too soon to tell whether
their new approach can achieve lasting effects. Republican State
officials are suing in Federal court to block Biden's policies
expanding legal entries through CBP One. At the same time, immigrant
advocacy groups have filed challenges in Federal court to Biden's new
border restrictions on asylum seekers who cross illegally.
The recent drop in illegal crossings does not mean fewer than half
as many migrants are coming to the United States. President Biden is
allowing roughly 43,000 migrants and asylum seekers per month to enter
through CBP One appointments and accepting an additional 30,000 through
a process called parole. The new legal channels appear to be absorbing
many of the border crossers who for years have entered unlawfully to
surrender in large groups, overwhelming U.S. border agents.
U.S. agents made about 100,000 arrests along the Mexico border in
June, the first full month that Biden's new measures were in effect,
down from 204,561 in May, according to the latest CBP data. It was the
largest 1-month decline since Biden took office.
Imelda Maynard, the legal director of Diocesan Migrant & Refugee
Services in El Paso, which aids migrants, described the past several
weeks in the city as ``eerily quiet.'' The number of migrants released
by CBP onto the streets of El Paso dropped to zero in recent days,
according to the city.
``We've been so used to putting out fire after fire, we're like:
Where are all the people?'' Maynard said.
`We're so close'
On the outskirts of El Paso, where for much of the past 2 years
migrants have attempted to enter illegally each day through the steep
canyons of Mount Cristo Rey, a CBP helicopter and a team of agents gave
chase one recent morning to a single border-crosser. He turned back
south.
With CBP using more contractors at its facilities to help perform
tasks such as data entry, medical screening and child care, Biden
officials say more U.S. agents can return to patrol duties. That
appears to be making it harder for border-crossers to sneak through.
The factors that have fueled migration to the United States remain
largely unchanged, but for the first time since Biden took office, the
President's team is testing a new border-management strategy, one it
considers a more humane and effective alternative to the Trump
administration's approach. At the heart of the strategy is a belief
that reducing the chaos and illegality of migration is more feasible
than trying to stop it.
Legislative proposals to overhaul the U.S. asylum process continue
to face steep odds in a polarized U.S. Congress, which hasn't passed
significant immigration legislation in nearly two decades.
Blas Nunez-Neto, the top border policy official at the Department
of Homeland Security, said the Administration's measures remain
vulnerable to adverse court rulings because they rely on executive
actions rather than congressional fixes, which remain stalled.
The fact that the new Biden system is working as intended is
encouraging, Nunez-Neto said in an interview. ``But it's still too
early to draw any definitive conclusions about what we're going to see
in the coming weeks and months.''
For migrants in Mexican border cities trying to secure a CBP One
appointment, the wait can be harrowing.
Jose Ricardo Pimentel, a 33-year-old Venezuelan, stood on the
bridge on a recent morning. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he
acknowledged that he'd slipped into the line without an appointment
that day because he was so desperate to leave Mexico.
``I was kidnapped along the highway to Ciudad Juarez and held for
22 days,'' he said. ``I'm scared.''
Pimentel reached the front of the line to plead his case, but U.S.
officers saw his name wasn't on their list. They turned him back.
Pimentel fell in behind other families who lacked appointments but
were clinging to faint hopes the CBP officers would allow them to enter
anyway.
Leidimar Munoz; her husband, Alexander Gonzalez; and their 7-year-
old daughter, Yefreannys, waited there, too, but they gave up after 5
hours in the 100-degree heat.
``My daughter couldn't stand it any longer,'' said Munoz, also from
Venezuela. ``She was hungry and asking to use the bathroom.''
The family walked back down the bridge into Ciudad Juarez, then
laid out a blanket under the bridge's shade, sharing a plate of chicken
and fried rice from a foam container. Yefreannys took out Play-Doh and
Barbie dolls from a dusty backpack with a cat face.
Munoz had registered the family for a CBP One appointment 8 days
earlier. The average wait for an appointment was 4 to 6 weeks, but she
didn't want to move into a shelter farther away from the border bridge.
They were spending nights under the bridge, sleeping outdoors on the
patio of a Mexican migrant services center.
Downtown El Paso seemed within grasp, its skyline visible past the
border wall and the spools of concertina wire.
``We're so close,'' Munoz said.
Before May 11, the family could have joined the tens of thousands
of other Venezuelans crossing illegally and surrendering to border
agents with an expectation they'd be quickly released into the United
States. Now doing so would risk deportation back to Mexico and
ineligibility for asylum. Munoz had to wait, glued to the mobile app.
Criticism from all sides
The drop in illegal crossings has given Biden a reprieve on one of
his most vulnerable issues ahead of next year's Presidential election.
White House officials expressed a sense of validation at seeing the
border numbers fall after the expiration of the pandemic restrictions--
noting how Republican politicians had been warning of impending chaos
after May 11.
But even as Biden's aides expressed relief, the president himself
has largely refrained from calling out his detractors over the issue.
The challenges with border enforcement have vexed his administration
since its earliest days, with fast-changing migration patterns, court
orders that kept Title 42 in place and criticism from both liberals and
conservatives.
The issue is bound to remain a sticking point during the 2024
campaign. Former president Donald Trump--who initiated the Title 42
policy and predicted that its end would lead to record migration--has
accused Biden of deliberately undermining border security by lifting
the restrictions.
Recent polling indicates that immigration is one of Biden's biggest
political liabilities, with 6 in 10 adults saying they disapprove of
his handling of the border, according to a recent AP-NO RC poll. In the
aftermath of Title 42's lifting, several Republican candidates have
announced Presidential bids--and almost all of them have used their
campaign launches to attack Biden on immigration.
In some cases, the disapproval is coming from Biden's side of the
aisle--with Democrats criticizing him as being too harsh toward
migrants.
Crystal Sandoval, director of strategic initiatives for Las
Americas, an advocacy group working on both sides of the border, said
Biden's restrictions have effectively ``ended'' access to asylum.
Though the administration is allowing tens of thousands to enter with
CBP One appointments to live in the United States while their
protection claims are pending in U.S. courts, asylum seekers who might
be fleeing immediate danger face new hurdles if they cross the border
illegally.
``Is it really due process?'' said Sandoval, whose organization has
been helping migrants in Ciudad Juarez fix errors to their CBP One
registrations.
``I expected more,'' she said. ``We can and should do better.''
A floating city
The deceased man lay facedown in a sandy berm about five miles
north of the border wall and 100 yards from a highway.
A CBP helicopter first spotted him, sending agents on horseback.
They estimated he'd been there about a week. Pieces of sponge were
glued to his boot soles, a tactic used to mask footprints. The sun had
left his limbs the color of charcoal.
He was one of two deceased migrants recovered in the Santa Teresa,
N.M., area, just outside El Paso, on a recent morning.
Crossings have historically dipped during the peak summer months
when temperatures along the border soar past 100 degrees. But as
migrants trying to evade capture face tougher odds to sneak through,
they often resort to more remote areas with greater risk. They may be
U.S. deportees, or have criminal records, making them ineligible for
CBP One.
Border agents in CBP's El Paso sector are still averaging 400 to
500 arrests per day, bringing detainees to the sprawling new detention
facility comprising brightly lit, climate-controlled tents that
resemble puffy clouds. The size of six football fields, it is the
largest and perhaps least harsh CBP facility ever built, with capacity
for more than 2,500.
The Border Patrol supervisor running the facility likened it to a
cruise ship--a small self-contained city floating on the desert. With
hot showers, onsite laundry and scores of private booths where migrants
can videoconference with attorneys, asylum officers and immigration
judges, the facility's operating costs exceed more than $1 million per
day.
Border Patrol officials said the facility allows them to manage
detainees using far fewer agents. They can reserve the more austere,
jail-like detention cells at Border Patrol stations for migrants
considered security risks. Family groups, unaccompanied minors and
others deemed lower risk can be held at the tent complex, where
contractors perform administrative and custodial tasks that have long
grated on agents.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.), a border-district lawmaker who
criticized the new facility's price tag after a recent tour, said
100,000 illegal crossings a month still add up to more than a million
annually, near historic highs. Asylum seekers who are released into the
United States while their claims are pending rarely end up deported,
even though the majority of their cases are rejected in U.S.
immigration court, he said.
``If this is what the administration thinks is a win, they're on
the complete wrong path,'' Gonzales said.
He said he is concerned that the arrival of tens of thousands of
migrants through CBP One has effectively ``streamlined and normalized
illegal immigration.''
``So they won't be deported, but they'll be living in the shadows
all their lives,'' Gonzales said. ``It's wrong to funnel them down a
dead end.''
Under CBP policy, 72 hours is the maximum amount of time migrants
should remain in the agency's custody before they are released or
transferred to another agency such as Immigration and Customs
Enforcement for longer-term detention. The 3-day window is generally
too short to resolve asylum seekers' claims of persecution in their
home countries.
The Biden administration appears to be using the new tent complex
to hold detainees longer, allowing more time for the government to
apply the new asylum restrictions and deport those who disregard the
CBP One route.
Border Patrol officials providing a tour of the facility did not
allow interviews with detainees. But one man lining up for a shower
said he'd been there 18 days.
Olorunnipa reported from Washington.
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize. Mr. Garbarino from New York.
Mr. Garbarino. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the
witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Jones, in its own 2021 Border Security Metrics Report,
DHS documented an increase in alternative forms of payment in
exchange for passage, including migrants being required to
participate in smuggling controlled substances or other illicit
items across the border or to work off debts upon arrival in
the United States, as well as reports of harsh negotiations
concerning payment plans with family members. Can you talk
about the rising prevalence of debt bondage and how the cartels
are using those they smuggle and traffic into the country due
to the work on their behalf?
Mr. Jones. Absolutely.
The Gulf Cartel specifically has a saying, and that is that
people are the gift, they keep giving, because they can make
them move the commodity just as you just acknowledged. But we
have seen that on the border where they're now making migrants
carry narcotics, we have seen where they then exploit them.
We've seen where other migrants are now being used to transport
migrants themselves. Because you can truly make this commodity
do what you want it to do. What these really represent, and
that's the most important here to understand, is this is a
process. Because just as Border Patrol was being absolutely
overwhelmed with these people, so were the cartels. The Gulf
had to come up with a process that worked. You're seeing it on
each of these. You've got some you can look here and you'll
see. That number goes into a database, and if you--at the time
that we broke this story, if you were a Mexican citizen, it was
$2,500 just across the river in South Texas, if you were
Central American, it was $3,000, if you were Chinese, $5,000,
and if you were Russian or Middle Eastern, $9,000. I've never
seen money like that, ever. It was always $100, if that, and
they didn't care where you went. Now, think of this. Now these
people are moved throughout our Nation, but yet they are
indebted to these people for years, if not decades to come in a
foreign country. This is where we really are now.
Mr. Garbarino. You talked about how you have seen this
before, but lower numbers with these higher numbers and the
amount of people, is this relatively a new phenomenon under
Secretary Mayorkas?
Mr. Jones. It is. Now, the smuggling of people has always
been there, but the adjustment from smuggling into the
trafficking through debt bondage, because due to the sheer
numbers, they thought, God, we can make so much money and we
can do it for the long run. This is the game-changer. When you
think of human trafficking, most people think of commercial
sex. That's one piece of it. Don't forget, you have forced
labor, and this is your final form, debt bondage. Now it's
Nation-wide.
Mr. Garbarino. Mr. Jones, I want to continue with the
profits on fentanyl and human trafficking. In July 2021 you
said I can without any doubt tell you that the profits they are
making today are like nothing we have seen prior. This is a
major revenue stream. How have those profits increased since
Secretary Mayorkas took office? How much do you think the
cartels are making annually on human trafficking and smuggling
alone?
Mr. Jones. We don't really know what the exact amounts are.
I mean, look, this is going to go on for decades. Many of us
will be dead and gone before we clean this up. But I can tell
you this. There will not be a law enforcement agency in this
country that is going to be doubling down on the threat that we
are now facing from trafficking as a result of what Secretary
Mayorkas is the architect behind these changes. When he took
power and he created the three exemptions under Title 42,
allowing UACs, unaccompanied alien children, into the country,
when he allowed pregnant mothers to come into the country, and
when he allowed family units, this was the game-changing
moment. It's validated by the data. If you just look at CBP
when these people began pouring across the country.
Mr. Garbarino. I was trying to do some numbers before with
what you said. You said went from $100 to $3,000 for some,
$2,500 for others, $5,000 up to $9,000.
Mr. Jones. That was just at the river, sir. Just at the
river. Never mind what country of origin where you came from.
Right now, if you're Chinese, to cross from China to Ecuador
and then make your way up, they're charging $35,000 a head.
They're moving 35 at a time in Fronton. Then the Cartel del
Noreste, literally takes all of their ID before they let them
into the United States and they drop it on the mic side so that
when it comes across, it holds up Border Patrol longer so that
they can then move weapons south, and as much commodities in as
they need to.
Mr. Garbarino. So for the last 2\1/2\ years, it seems that
the profits for these drug cartels have increased immensely?
Mr. Jones. Agreed.
Mr. Garbarino. How are these profits giving these cartels
more power, making them more dangerous?
Mr. Jones. Well, look at the military-grade weaponry
they're now using, look at the level and span of control in
Mexico. The people of Mexico have taken the blunt of this.
They've lost over 340,000 citizens since 2007. In the last
national election, CNN did a fantastic work. There was 132
politicians and staffers killed. Anybody can Google it. Mexico
has truly fallen to these cartels. When I tell you they're a
parallel government, you are truly looking at a narco-state.
The problem is when you're killing journalists in Mexico and
they can't get the information out, this is why we are so far
behind what these cartels are doing. That's why we and
Americans are feeling the impact in every part of this Nation
today.
Mr. Garbarino. I am out of time, but if you could respond
in writing more about what is happening to the American
citizens because of the cartels, that would be great.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlemen yields.
I now recognize Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I am kind enough to yield to the next
individual. I will come back after that.
Chairman Green. We can go out of order, absolutely.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Chairman Green. Ms. Garcia, you are recognized.
Mrs. Ramirez. Ramirez. Ms. Ramirez.
Chairman Green. Ms. Ramirez. I am sorry.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking
Member Thompson.
We have been here for about an hour-and-a-half and I want
to thank you for this hearing. Today's hearing should be
shedding light on the pressing issues surrounding immigration
policies, what is causing migration, and how do we make sure
the children we talk about, the children that I actually know
personally are cared for. Instead, I think we continue to
politicize an issue that actually both sides need to address,
which is immigration reform.
I actually want to get back to why we are all here today.
The American people expect us to do our job and to solve the
problems. They expect us to have unbiased people who are
witnesses here and provide us an opportunity to shed light on
how we move forward. As I think about the hearing now and
hearing the witnesses, I think about just last year how a
horrific domestic terror attack at a Buffalo, New York
supermarket left our Nation reeling. My colleagues across the
aisle offered up their thoughts and prayers, but they offered
no actions to address racially- and ethnically-motivated
violent extremism. It is not lost on me that before murdering
10 people at the supermarket last year, the shooter wrote, and
I quote, ``We are experiencing an invasion on a level never
seen before in history.'' However, twisted justification, the
shooter believed he was repelling an invasion of the United
States by immigrants from Latin America. Does that sound
familiar?
Mr. Maltz, in your testimony you said I know what is going
on in America. So let me ask you, do you support the assertion
that the United States is experiencing a historic invasion by
immigrants? That is a yes or no question.
Mr. Maltz. Illegal immigrants, immigrants from around the--
yes.
Mrs. Ramirez. Yes or no?
Mr. Maltz. Yes.
Mrs. Ramirez. So you believe that we are experiencing a
historic invasion of immigrants?
Mr. Maltz. Yes.
Mrs. Ramirez. So despite knowing that the Pittsburgh
shooter justified his actions based on the idea of an immigrant
invasion to replace white people, despite knowing that invasion
ideology was used to justify the shootings in El Paso and
Buffalo, you continue to espouse this great replacement theory
and extremist ideology that people like me, when my mother
crossed the border pregnant with me, don't deserve to be here
because we are invading the country?
Mr. Chairman, this hearing is not a fact-finding mission,
it is a raw political sham to stoke fear and it will continue
to justify the violence against immigrant communities. I find
that unacceptable. This body's job is to address the problems
in our country, not to spew more hate. That is what we should
be focusing on, legislative solutions, not divisive
distractions, and prioritizing the expansion of resources for
immigrant communities and comprehensive immigration reform.
That is how we address public safety.
So let me just end by saying let us direct our efforts
toward meaningful action that upholds our values and ensures
the security and well-being of all of us, regardless of
immigration status. That is the America that I know, that is
the America that I love.
With that, Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize Mr. Ezell for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you panel for
being here today.
I know it is a lot going on and we appreciate your time
here.
I spent 42 years in police service, 3-term sheriff and
enjoyed every day of it. I will tell you, the safety and
security of people has always been on my mind, not only of my
home State of Mississippi, but across this Nation. I want to be
clear that due to the Biden administration's open border catch-
and-release policies, cartel crime is transitioning from a
border issue to a national issue. Every State is a border
State.
Border Patrol agents have arrested more than 30,000 illegal
aliens with criminal backgrounds since Joe Biden took office.
While this is a staggering number, it does not even consider
the illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds that have evaded
Border Patrol and entered the country illegally.
Mr. Jones, in your estimation, how many criminals, gang
members, or suspected terrorists are now in the United States
among the 1.5 million getaways that have evaded Border Patrol
agents?
Mr. Jones. Congressman, thank you for your service.
We have no idea. The border is so wide open.
Mr. Ezell. That is exactly right.
What threats do these individuals pose to communities not
just at the border, but throughout this country?
Mr. Jones. Everything from terrorism to the unprecedented
amounts of deaths that we're seeing of American citizens from
fentanyl and the many other drugs that are crossing that
Southern Border.
Mr. Ezell. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Maltz, we know cartels are the leading criminal
organizations that manufacture and distribute illegal fentanyl
in our country. Over the past 3 years, Border Patrol has seized
over 45,000 pounds of fentanyl, enough to kill over 10 billion
people. Most of that fentanyl has been seized at the ports of
entry on the border. However, the sheer amount of this drug on
our streets shows that the ports of entry aren't the full
story.
Can you walk the committee through how cartels are using
Mayorkas' open border between the ports of entry where there is
little infrastructure stopping them to smuggle these drugs into
our country?
Mr. Maltz. So I would say, first of all, they're making
billions of dollars, so funding is not an issue. Then they're
flooding the zones. They're sending massive amounts of migrants
to certain areas where they know Border Patrol has limited
resources, and then they're using the open border area to just
smuggle in unlimited amount of people, unlimited amount of
drugs, and, of course, bringing the weapons south and the money
south. So it's basically they're just taking full advantage of
the vulnerabilities and the weaknesses. The poor Border Patrol
is out there and they don't have the personnel. They don't have
enough people in certain sectors.
I mean, obviously, this document--and I deliberately
attached this into the record--it's all the news, the headline
news of all the mass poisonings. So that's the ultimate impact
when the cartels have such control at the border to send their
people into America to set up operations and move this poison
all over the place.
Mr. Ezell. Do you believe a border wall would deter the
flow of fentanyl in this country?
Mr. Maltz. Yes, because the border wall would then force
everybody to go into the POEs, where we could put the best and
brightest and resources and technology and scanning and canines
and do much more thorough searching. We wouldn't have to worry
about our manpower running around the open border trying to
chase people down, sometimes one and two guys. It's very, very
dangerous to be out there when you don't have the manpower.
So I would prefer to focus everybody into the POEs. That's
not going to solve the problem, but it's going to help and
that's what we're looking to do.
Mr. Ezell. Very good.
From what we have heard today, it is completely
irresponsible that President Biden from his first day in office
he signed an Executive Order pausing border wall construction.
The 70,000 fentanyl deaths in America are directly attributed
to this open border policy.
Mr. Chairman, I will not stop working with you to protect
our Nation's families.
With that sir, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Ms. Jackson Lee from Texas for 5 minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I have been in this committee and I have
watched Chairman Green and Chairman Thompson work very well
together on a number of issues. In fact, they have shown
themselves to be respectful of each other. For that I say thank
you.
I have had the ability to monitor what has been going on in
this room and I frankly believe that problems don't get solved
by castigating and making incorrect statements.
I also have a 28-year history in this Congress and have
been involved with immigration for at least that long a period
of time. In the Judiciary Committee, as Ranking Member of the
Immigration Subcommittee, and this committee as Chair of the
Transportation Security Committee, Ranking Chair of the Border
Security Committee, and as a Texan have been to the border many
times. I do believe that we can do this and solve the problem
of immigration reform together.
What I also know is at least the border in Texas there are
many who are on the border that don't want a border wall
because of its intrusiveness. In addition, because of
topography and design, the border wall sometimes is not
effectively put in the right place to be able to create any
kind of criminal incident. After Title 42, we have found
statistically, as answered by those at CBP, Customs and Border
Protection, and the Border Patrol that numbers are clear, that
we have worked to do together on those who are coming across.
It is clear that not one American, no matter what their party
affiliation, abhors cartels violence and viciousness, and will
come together to work on that issue.
But it does no good for any of us to suggest that the
President of the United States and the Secretary of Homeland
Security are the key and only reasons for migration. I take
offense and it is wrong frankly because migration is a world-
wide concern. Some would say problem, others would say crisis.
People desperately come even if it is for their economic
goodness and they argue something else.
We well know that immigrants contribute $1.3 trillion in
spending power to the economy. We also realize that not one
single person sitting in this room was an indigenous person in
the United States of America. Your ancestors came from
somewhere. Mine came unwillingly in bondage.
But it is clear to me that we have to find a better way.
Let me quickly raise this question. Let me quickly do so.
In 2018, the Nation was horrified when a domestic terrorist
shot down 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in
Pittsburgh. Before going on this rampage, the shooter shared a
manifesto alleging that, ``The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by
and watch my people get slaughtered.'' Two weeks before that,
he called immigrants hostile invaders on social media.
Ms. Vaughan, do you believe there is a flood of immigrant
invaders at the Southern Border who are slaughtering victims in
American communities? This is a yes or no answer.
Ms. Vaughan. No. They're taking advantage of the
opportunities that are offered by the current policies.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So you have answered no. So let me just
say this. In your testimony, on page 8 of your written
testimony, you say there is a flood of people in the border, to
the border brought on by the Biden-Mayorkas policies, and that
these careless policies have created scores of new victims in
American communities, all of which were preventable crimes. Ms.
Vaughan, the issue of your partisan extremism goes beyond your
testimony today. On November 4, 2021, you alleged that the
tragic murder of a man in Florida that year was another
casualty due to Biden's open border. Two years before that, on
January 8, 2019, you laid blame for the horrific murder of a
police officer, Mrs. Singh, in San Joaquin Valley at the feet
of Democrats' border weakening and sanctuary policies. I find
this very dangerous, because we need to come together as
Americans, frankly, to be able to work, not name-call, but to
be able to say, none of us wanted those kinds of incidents. How
dare you say that any of us will want to have an officer killed
or family killed? Neither does the President and neither the
Secretary.
Let me move quickly to something that is very important,
Mr. Green, and I appreciate if you would allow me to do that.
I happen to be someone who knows that there are barriers
that can be utilized in certain ways, being a Texan. I also
know that we need to stop penalizing nonprofits for trying to
help persons so that cities wouldn't have to put persons
somewhere because the nonprofits have them. But let me raise
this to a former DPS. I want to applaud a DPS officer who is on
duty today in Texas who became a whistleblower to ask the
question, why is State government and this Lone Star effort
causing immigrants to die in the water, causing a pregnant
woman to miscarry over the raised wire and the buoys that are
there, forcing them to go into deeper water, why a mother lost
her life, her child's life, and another child is missing, why a
little 4-year-old was denied water. This is the words of DPS
whistleblower right on staff today. The question would be to
all of you, as I asked the question, this is not America. The
Border Patrol agents saying that the razor wire and the buoys
are creating a difficult situation for them because as sworn
officers of the United States of America, they are sworn to
protect these people even as they will send them back. They are
going into deeper water to save lives.
Chairman Green. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I am putting that on the record, Mr.
Chairman, because I want an investigation. These are not
governmental witnesses, they are witnesses who have come to
share their stories. But I want an investigation.
Mr. Jones. Can I respond to that?
Ms. Jackson Lee. I want an investigation.
Mr. Jones. Is there availability for me to respond to that
accusation?
Chairman Green. Hold on, hold on. I am taking control back,
the gentle lady's time has expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman is not----
Mr. D'Esposito is recognized from New York. You may yield,
if you would like to, to Mr. Jones.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentleman is not on staff at this
point.
Mr. D'Esposito. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield to Mr.
Jones.
Mr. Jones. I am the only one sitting in this room that's
been exactly where those accusations were made. On my phone
I've got video of what the men and women of law enforcement at
local, State, and especially the Texas Department of Public
Safety and National Guard are going through as hundreds of
people 3 miles from the closest port of entry are being crossed
by the cartels. To say that the men and women of DPS are
throwing babies into the river is absolute absurd----
Ms. Jackson Lee. I didn't say----
Mr. Jones [continuing]. And that they would do that----
Ms. Jackson Lee. I didn't say that.
Mr. Jones. That's the accusation in there.
Chairman Green. The gentleman is recognized. The gentleman
may----
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, he cannot malign me in this
room. I did not say----
Mr. Jones. Not only that----
Mr. D'Esposito. Ms. Jackson Lee, I believe this is my time.
Ms. Jackson Lee.
Chairman Green. Mr. D'Esposito, you have reclaimed your
time.
Mr. D'Esposito. Thank you.
So the name of this hearing, ``Biden and Mayorkas' Open
Border: Advancing Cartel Crime in America'', I have heard this
described as a sham, I have heard it described as theater, I
heard it described as a complete waste of time. It is beyond
explanation. People are dying and crimes are being committed.
How is that a sham? How is that theater? How is any of that a
waste of time?
I want to thank all of you for being here today. Mr. Jones,
Mr. Maltz, I want to thank you for your service in law
enforcement. I too spent a career in law enforcement and
retired from the NYPD as a detective.
There is no doubt there is a crime crisis in America thanks
in part to the dereliction of duty of Secretary Mayorkas' wide
open Southwest Border.
I am going to ask all of you, it is a yes or no question,
do you believe the Biden administration's soft-on-crime
policies, such as their efforts to limit law enforcement access
to surplus Federal equipment and their restrictions on Federal
grant dollars to police departments worsen our Nation's crime
prices?
Mr. Jones, yes or no?
Mr. Jones. Yes.
Mr. D'Esposito. Ms. Vaughan, yes or no?
Ms. Vaughan. Yes.
Mr. D'Esposito. Mr. Maltz, yes or no?
Mr. Maltz. Yes.
Mr. D'Esposito. Ms. Felbab-Brown, yes or no?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. No.
Mr. D'Esposito. OK. So I have heard this also mentioned
that we should be thankful that the numbers have fallen to such
a low level. They are not low. There are still thousands upon
thousands of people coming to this country illegally and
thousands and thousands more that we don't even know about.
Quite frankly, it is like celebrating a category 3 hurricane
instead of a category 4 hurricane. It is absurd.
I want to focus on the law enforcement for a second. Mr.
Jones, what are some of the main consequences for local law
enforcement of increased cartel activity in their
jurisdictions?
Mr. Jones. They are completely overrun on the Southwest
Border. If you go to Arizona right now and you sit back with
Sheriff Mark Lamb, let me tell you, I've embedded with his law
enforcement agency. You realize out of 1 out of every 10
traffic stops that man is making and his personnel are in
pursuits 70 miles into the country. These agencies are overrun.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has spent $9 billion from
the State legislature to try to support operations between the
ports of entry because we are overrun with crime.
Mr. D'Esposito. Mr. Maltz, do you believe that law
enforcement throughout this country faces more threats of
violence because of our open borders?
Mr. Maltz. Absolutely. I also know they're retiring at
record levels at the executive leadership level because they
can't take it anymore. The mixed messages are overwhelming.
Mr. D'Esposito. So you don't believe the lines at the
pension section just happened to happen?
Mr. Maltz. I just know that I talk to people every day and
they're leaving law enforcement because morale is at a rock
level, at the lowest level, because of this. They signed up to
keep America safe.
Mr. D'Esposito. I agree. It is because of exactly failed
leadership like this.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Maltz, I am going to ask you a question.
Both of you have served in leadership capacities in law
enforcement, have ever and would you ever make a decision that
would put any of your officers in danger?
Mr. Maltz. Never.
Mr. Jones. Never.
Mr. D'Esposito. Right. That is why we are here today,
because we are talking about cartels, we are talking about
crime that is being committed, and we are talking about
Secretary Mayorkas and his dereliction of duty. Why? Because he
makes policies and carries out policies that have put people in
danger, has put law enforcement in danger.
I only have 40 seconds left. A general question to Mr.
Jones and Mr. Maltz, what are the broader impacts on first
responders, law enforcement, fire service because of the cartel
along the border? Please, if you could do 10 seconds a piece.
Mr. Jones. Completely overrun. When you look in South Texas
right now, you've got Texas troopers who've been deployed for
2\1/2\ years, 12,000-plus Texas National Guardmen completely
overrun and overwhelmed after--exhausted.
Mr. D'Esposito. Thank you.
Mr. Maltz.
Mr. Maltz. The criminals don't fear any repercussions of
their actions because they're not being held accountable.
Mr. D'Esposito. Exactly. So what we are seeing here today,
we are answering the question to this hearing. So it is not a
sham, it is not a waste of time, it is actually a mission. It
is a mission to make this homeland, our homeland, the United
States of America, safer for our children and our
grandchildren.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize Mr. Menendez of New Jersey.
Mr. Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We can all agree that Mexican cartels pose a direct threat
to U.S. interest. We can all agree that we need to fight the
scourge of fentanyl in this country. We can also agree that
this body and the U.S. Government should prioritize addressing
these issues.
But today's hearing has not been a serious discussion of
ways to protect American families from cartel activities or
fentanyl trafficking. How can we engage in good-faith
discussions of border policies when this committee's Majority
is using this committee to arrive at a pre-determined
destination, the impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas, a
destination they have said both publicly and behind closed
doors they are set on reaching. No matter what the facts are,
no matter what the administration has done to address these
critical issue, when witnesses confirm what the Majority
already believes instead of engaging in actual fact-finding.
Ms. Vaughan, you work for the Center for Immigration
Studies, is that correct?
Ms. Vaughan. Yes, I do.
Mr. Menendez. Ms. Vaughan, yes or no, did you speak at an
event organized by the Social Contract Press?
Ms. Vaughan. Look, I have said that you----
Mr. Menendez. Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes or no?
You were able to answer other questions in a yes-or-no fashion.
Yes or no?
Ms. Vaughan. Look, what I said is that----
Mr. Menendez. You did. Did you appear----
Ms. Vaughan [continuing]. You're trying to distract from a
serious topic----
Mr. Menendez. Did you appear--excuse me, Mr. Chairman----
Ms. Vaughan [continuing]. By smearing----
Mr. Menendez [continuing]. This is my time.
Ms. Vaughan. Attempting to smear me.
Mr. Menendez. No, I am just asking you questions.
Chairman Green. The gentleman reclaims his time.
Ms. Vaughan. Denigrating----
Mr. Menendez. Did you appear alongside an editor of
Chronicles magazine, yes or no?
Ms. Vaughan. Could you repeat it, please?
Mr. Menendez. Did you appear alongside an editor of
Chronicles magazine, yes or no?
Ms. Vaughan. Not that I know of.
Mr. Menendez. Did you give an interview to the American
Free Press?
Ms. Vaughan. I've never heard of it.
Mr. Menendez. You have never heard of the American Free
Press?
Ms. Vaughan. No, sir.
Mr. Menendez. You have never done work with the American
Free Press? OK, well, we will go back to the record.
Ms. Vaughan. Please explain to me----
Mr. Menendez. It is important that--excuse me. I am
reclaiming my time. I think it is important that we shed light
on the organization you work for as well as the three
organizations that I believe you have either worked for or
appeared alongside.
The Center for Immigration Studies has been labeled an
anti-immigrant hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Ms. Vaughan. That is a complete----
Mr. Menendez. The Social Contract Press, a white
nationalist publisher, has been labeled as a designated hate
group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to the
Southern Poverty Law Center, Chronicles magazine is a
publication with strong neo-Confederate ties that caters to the
white nationalist movement. According to the Anti-Defamation
League, the American Free Press is an antisemitic newspaper
founded by a Holocaust denier.
On the day that Congress welcomed the Israeli president to
address us, we have someone who has contributed to an
antisemitic newspaper founded by a Holocaust denier, a witness
who makes 9 assertions in her written testimony about the
administration's policies, assertions the Majority will likely
rely on to further their cause for the impeachment of Secretary
Mayorkas. Yet only 2 citations were provided for those 9
assertions, both of which were provided by the Center for
Immigration Studies, where you work, again, an organization
that has been labeled an anti-immigrant hate group.
I also think it is important that we discuss some of these
issues through the lens of our values. Members of the Majority,
along with some of our witnesses, have mentioned their concern
for the safety of migrants. Ms. Vaughan, you contend that the
administration's policies expose migrants to abuse by the
cartels. I am glad that you recognize that the long and
difficult journey that migrants face is an issue of concern.
Immigrants travel to the United States by any means they can,
in search of a better life for their family, including on foot
for hundreds, if not thousands of miles, enduring exposure to
injury and illness along the way. That is why it is
unconscionable to me that you also go out of your way to praise
what Governor Abbot of Texas has done. You say in your
testimony that, ``To the extent there is any improvement at all
it is most likely due to efforts by the State of Texas to
physically block the entry points, such as by patrolling the
Rio Grande River, installing razor wire and buoys.'' I am sure
that many of us saw the reports this week about how Texas is
telling their medics in the Department of Public Safety to
treat migrants inhumanely. There has been a soaring heat wave
in the Southwest, yet medics have reportedly been told not to
give out water. Governor Abbott has made crossing the Rio
Grande River a more dangerous and even deadly proposition by
adding the buoys and razor wire mentioned that you alluded to
in your testimony, including in areas of the river with high
water and low visibility.
This report included a story of a 19-year-old woman trapped
in the wire who is having a miscarriage. Five immigrants have
drowned in a 1-week period in the area near where this wire was
installed. Where is the humanity for these people? Where is
your outrage when you hear these stories? What are you doing to
change the outcome for the people trying to get to this
country, our country to live their American dream for the
betterment of their families? Where is your outrage when they
have to encounter these conditions trying to get here to seek
asylum?
I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I recognize, Mr. Brecheen of Oklahoma.
Mr. Breechen. Mr. Chairman, at the onset of my time, I
would like to yield 30 seconds to Ms. Vaughan.
Chairman Green. Ms. Vaughan, you are recognized.
Ms. Vaughan. I am outraged because I cannot imagine a more
inhumane policy than one that entices vulnerable migrants to
turn over their life savings, their families, their kids to
criminal smuggling organizations because they believe that they
will be allowed to stay in this country, and end up in debt
bondage and other horrific situations. Frankly, I'm saddened
that Members feel the need to distract from this horrific
treatment of people by impugning my motives, insulting me,
smearing, repeating lies about me to distract from a horrible
problem.
I sat and testified as a witness at a hearing about a year
ago that Ms. Jackson Lee held in which she brought in three
survivors of human trafficking. It was a very well-done
hearing. We heard their stories. They were brave. This is a
real issue, a real atrocity that is occurring at our border. To
act like this is some kind of political stunt is a shame.
Mr. Breechen. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I want to give you
some time, if I may reclaim my time.
Chairman Green. The gentleman reclaims.
Mr. Breechen. Look, let's just talk about the difference of
where we have come in 2 years. Historic lows in 45 years of
illegal immigration, historic lows by the person at the helm
who enacts laws, historic lows of illegal immigration. Now we
have the most illegal immigration in our country's history.
Decisions matter. A lack of leadership on this front matters.
People are losing their lives. Children are being sold into the
sex traffic slave trade because of decisions that are being
made.
In 2022, human trafficking arrests have increased 50
percent, 72 percent of trafficking victims are immigrants.
Mr. Jones, a minute ago, you talked about some things that
we have to be concerned about. The new mob, the cartel coming
into the United States. The new mob. I want you to recite the
fact that you said a minute ago. How many politicians were
killed in Mexico?
Mr. Jones. In the last national election--if you'll look
up, CNN did some great reporting on this--132, including their
staff.
Mr. Breechen. Mr. Jones, are they coming to a State near
you? Are the cartels richer and more powerful because of this
administration, President Biden's decision and Secretary
Mayorkas' decision? Are they more powerful and richer today?
Mr. Jones. This is a whole new scheme that has resulted in
them getting richer right here in debt bondage.
Mr. Breechen. Are they more powerful in America because of
the decisions at the Executive helm?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir.
Mr. Breechen. In America debt bondage, we keep hearing
about debt bondage. Thirty-five thousand dollars if you are
coming from China, the cartel is charging you to come into this
country. Do we not think that they are going to employ not only
the tactics of the employment, but what about prostitution to
repay that debt?
Mr. Jones. In every form that you can think of, they're
going to require these people--and then when they've paid it,
they're going to say they did something wrong, and now they owe
another $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, because that's what they can
do. You see, they know where their families are in their
country of origin, and they know where they're going here in
our country. It's all right here in the numbers in their
database.
Mr. Breechen. Mr. Chairman, I am concerned about the Biden
administration, as I know many of us on this committee are,
their policies, these unaccompanied alien children, and it is
run by the Department of Health and Human Services. So some of
you have some great insight on that fraudulent use of that UAC
program. Children that are being trafficked, they are being
abused, they are being sold into sex trade.
I want to ask Ms. Vaughan, what do you know about children
that have been involved in the sex trade because of the UAC
program implementation?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, in many cases, their lives are ruined.
In some cases, it happens because they get preyed on when, for
example, they're in shelters in places like San Antonio or New
York or Chicago that are overrun. They're there by themselves.
Mr. Breechen. Is this administration making sure that those
children who may be forced to say they are related, is this
administration making sure that they verify that they are those
children? What change over the prior policy is not making sure
that they are the children?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, previously the policy was that no child
would be without a certain level of vetting of the sponsor.
Mr. Breechen. Does that include DNA tests to make sure if
that child's being forced?
Ms. Vaughan. OK, well, DNA testing was done at the border
because there was a problem----
Mr. Breechen. Has that been changed under this
administration?
Ms. Vaughan. Yes, it has. They eliminated----
Mr. Breechen. So are we complicit? Is this administration
potentially complicit in children who are being forced to claim
they are related, being sold into a sex trade, and we could
have caught them at the border if we had have done DNA
analysis? This administration is undermining that process?
Ms. Vaughan. The cartels and smugglers are thrilled that
the DNA testing policy has been abandoned because it makes it
very easy for them now to rent, kidnap, and use children to
assist other inadmissible illegal aliens in crossing into the
United States.
Chairman Green. The gentleman's time has expired.
I now recognize Ms. Titus for her 5 minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chairman, may I introduce into the
record--please, just very briefly.
Chairman Green. Do you want to ask Ms. Titus to introduce
that for you, Ms. Jackson Lee? Ms. Titus has been recognized.
Ms. Titus. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
record----
Ms. Jackson Lee. The Texas troopers accounts of bloodied
and fainted migrants on the U.S. Mexico border. Also in the
Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post. These were not my
words, the words of a Texas trooper words.
Chairman Green. Without objection, so ordered.*
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* The information was not available at the time of publication.
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Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank the lady. Thank you.
Ms. Titus. I am just wondering how you know that the cartel
members are thrilled. Have you done polling of these cartel
members or something to figure out how thrilled they are about
this?
Ms. Jackson Lee. It is OK.
Ms. Titus. That is a rhetorical question.
I just sit here one more time and listen to one more
hearing trying to attack the Secretary, trying to attack the
President, talking about the border with inflammatory titles
like The Open Border, Advancing Cartel Crime. Meantime, we got
domestic terrorism, we got antisemitism, we got Asian hatred,
we got cybersecurity. All of that is being ignored, and all of
those things are serious problems.
It is so easy just to point a finger at one person and say,
oh, it is his fault for being a bad manager. But if you look at
the issue from a historical, sociological, and economic
standpoint, you will find that it is much more complicated than
that. You can look at the complex history of Central and South
America. You can look at our currently-strained relationship
with Mexico. You can look at the broken immigration system that
we don't seem to be able to fix. You can look at the immense
power of the cartels and their abuses at every level, using
guns that they have mostly gotten from across the border and
selling drugs to people in the United States because we have
customers here who want that, as we have a decades-long opioid
crisis, and there is no agreement on border policies. We hear
from some members of the border what we need are more
resources, we hear from whatever your sources are from
disgruntled people at the border that it is all management's
fault.
Let's look at this comprehensively. I would ask you,
Doctor, you mentioned in Europe there is a difference between
the way the cartels work in Mexico and when they come to the
United States. Largely that can be credited to our law
enforcement doing a good job. They are not as violent, they
don't infiltrate governments, they don't raid villages here.
But we don't have a very good relationship with Mexico on this
front like we do on some other diplomatic fronts. Could you
talk a little bit about how we could maybe improve that
relationship so we can jointly go after some of these cartels?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Several years ago, the U.S. Government
and the Mexican government established a policy or basic
understanding of shared responsibility. This notion of shared
responsibility carried across both Republican administration
and Democratic administration on the U.S. side and across
several Mexican governments. Unfortunately, although this
notion is still in rhetoric, the current Mexican government of
President Lopez Obrador has significantly walked away back from
it. We have seen really during his administration a very
profound hollowing out of cooperation. He is also adopting
policies, or the lack of policies in Mexico, that are enabling
in their lack of response the Mexican cartels. It is difficult
to see how this could be changed during the last year of his
administration, but there will be elections in Mexico.
It is clear that any kind of effective policy requires
respect and recognition of interest on both sides. But
unfortunately, this is not happening with the current Mexican
government. The Biden administration has done its best to try
to induce better cooperation from Mexico. But we have very far
to go.
Ms. Titus. Thank you. I hear from your other panel members
that the way to solve this problem is get rid of Mayorkas and
maybe build a wall. Are there other things more realistic that
we could do to make the situation better just on our side?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Absolutely. Certainly there are many
opportunities to strengthen both treatment, demand reduction,
and address those important dimensions, as well as access to
medications, such as overdose medication, other medication for
those that have substance use disorders.
There are other opportunities to strengthen law enforcement
actions. These include resourcing far better legal ports of
entry so more inspections can take place. This includes
expanding the policies, how we tackle the cartels, not simply
thinking of them as smuggling entities or drug-smuggling
entities only, but targeting their many dimensions, including
their other access to money through joint task forces that have
U.S. law enforcement agents as well as other members of
relevant agencies.
So whole-of-Government approach that expands both
Departments of State, Department of Defense, that expands
authorities of agencies such as U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
Ms. Titus. Well, we also hear that some of the Mexican
pharmacies are selling drugs laced with fentanyl. That is to a
lot of American tourists who are down there, that is not the
cartels, but there may be a connection. Also these retail
crimes here in this country often use what they sell on the
internet or sell wherever to fund some of these things, like
trafficking. That would be kind-of part of the all-of-
Government approach that we might address. Is that right?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Absolutely.
Ms. Titus. Well, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Green. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize Mr. Crane from Arizona.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
coming here today.
I continue to hear the same thing. I want to echo what my
colleague Mr. D'Esposito was saying. I can't help but notice,
this is a sham, this is more impeachment theater. This is the
Homeland Security Committee. If we are not talking about this,
I don't know what else we are going to be talking about. If we
are not talking about trying to hold the individuals that are
in charge of leadership on homeland security accountable, I
don't know what else we are going to be talking about.
I wish you gentlemen were here yesterday. Some of my
colleagues on the other side were trying to undermine how
effective walls and barriers are. It is sad. I spent a lot of
my life in the military, and I worked in Special Forces, so I
understand security, I understand security systems. We talked
about overlapping deterrents, we talked about using trained
personnel, technology, barriers, intelligence, all of these
things together. Overlapping deterrents and security systems to
secure whatever you want to secure. It is sad to me that my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle can't even
acknowledge that barriers, whether it is around their house,
their schools, these complexes, whatever it is, are effective.
Mr. Jones, I want to ask you about that, sir, because I
know you understand security a lot better than the average
individual. Do you find individuals that isolate barriers and
walls and say they are archaic and ineffective, do you find
those individuals serious when it comes to actual security?
Mr. Jones. I think they don't understand what's taking
place. In South Texas, for example, you can be inside a stash
house in a matter of seconds. So it's not about an electronic
wall for detection, it's about how fast can you get a law
enforcement personnel there.
Mr. Crane. Yes.
Mr. Jones. When you go to Arizona, for example, you've got
a lot of space there. You still have the challenge. That where
we are in 2024, it's not about the detection issue, it's about
how you get law enforcement able to respond before they're
picked up or inside these stash houses. That's the core
fundamental problem.
Mr. Crane. These overlapping deterrents help give our law
enforcement officials time to respond. Is that correct?
Mr. Jones. It's correct.
Mr. Crane. Mr. Maltz, would you agree with that?
Mr. Maltz. Absolutely, yes.
Mr. Crane. OK, great.
Mr. Jones, you were talking about classifying cartels as
terrorist organizations. I have heard that argument before. I
understand why that argument is being made. But I want to ask
you something, sir. Did you watch the videos of the United
States pulling out of Afghanistan?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir, I did.
Mr. Crane. Did you watch the people hanging from planes?
Mr. Jones. Yes, sir, I did.
Mr. Crane. Mr. Maltz, did you watch that?
Mr. Maltz. Yes. I also witnessed my brother coming back in
a body bag from the war in Afghanistan.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, sir.
One of my biggest concerns when we start talking about that
stuff, sir, is it would be the same leadership fight against
the cartels. That concerns me. Quite honestly, I don't trust
them to do that job. That is one of the biggest issues that I
have.
I also want to hear your thoughts, sir, because I know you
have done this for a long time, how that would affect some of
the asylum claims.
Mr. Jones. Sure. First, we have to understand that the
issue right now that we have with these cartels is it's about
authorities. I don't look to go to war using our military in
Mexico.
Mr. Crane. Right.
Mr. Jones. We have proven in the past, working with the
Marines, working with SEMAR, driving intelligence-led
operations. But what we didn't do was network theory. We
leveraged a law enforcement model and it was too slow. What
does it do? It goes after the bosses.
Mr. Crane. Just out of time--for time's sake, sir, so you
are talking more about using intelligence.
Mr. Jones. Absolutely. But we will have----
Mr. Crane. OK. You are not talking about----
Mr. Jones. We will have to use overt action at times. Look,
the air is--you're not flying over there without getting shot
down.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, sir.
My last question. The Federation for America Immigration
Reform, FAIR, recently calculated the cost of illegal
immigration to be $150.7 billion to Americans. Do you know how
much a border wall would cost to build? Anybody on the panel
have any idea, roughly? The same group says about $22 billion.
Mr. Jones, do you think that would be a good investment?
Mr. Jones. I think right now, beyond anything regarding
money being spent by this committee or any others to the
protection of this country, you have to look at the totality of
these cartels in providing the authorities we need. That is our
real issue right now.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to enter this
article into record.
Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Green. Without objection, the article is entered.
[The information follows:]
The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers--
2023 Cost Study
March 8, 2023
Report by FAIR Research--March 2023
The following is a summary of our cost study findings. To access
our full report, including State-specific information, click here.
key highlights
At the start of 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration
for the United States--at the Federal, State, and local
levels--was at least $150.7 billion.
FAIR arrived at this number by subtracting the tax revenue
paid by illegal aliens--just under $32 billion--from the gross
negative economic impact of illegal immigration, $182 billion.
In 2017, the estimated net cost of illegal migration was
approximately $116 billion. In just 5 years, the cost to
Americans has increased by nearly $35 billion.
Illegal immigration costs each American taxpayer $1,156 per
year ($957 after factoring in taxes paid by illegal aliens).
Each illegal alien or U.S.-born child of illegal aliens
costs the United States $8,776 annually:
Evidence shows that tax payments by illegal aliens cover
only around a sixth of the costs they create at all levels in
this country.
A large percentage of illegal aliens who work in the
underground economy frequently avoid paying any income tax at
all.
Many illegal aliens actually receive a net cash profit
through refundable tax credit programs.
introduction
This cost study report is currently the only comprehensive
examination of the financial impact of illegal immigration in the
United States. Every day, hundreds of millions of dollars in American
taxpayer money are spent on costs directly associated with illegal
immigration. Only a small fraction of these costs is ever recouped from
taxes paid by illegal aliens, with the rest falling on the shoulders of
American citizens and legal immigrants.
Our aim in this report is to show the American people the fiscal
burden of illegal immigration at every level and across nearly all
aspects of life. These costs range from emergency medical care to in-
State tuition; from incarcerating illegal aliens in local jails to
Federal budgets that pay out billions in welfare every year. Because
there are so many different ways that money is spent on illegal aliens
at both the State and local levels, the information in our report is
otherwise hard to find (or even intentionally hidden). This report
supersedes FAIR's 2017 cost study and highlights massive increases in
spending related to illegal immigration that were implemented while
American citizens deal with an uncertain economy.
the number of illegal immigrants in the united states
Estimating the fiscal burden of illegal immigration on the U.S.
taxpayer depends on the size and characteristics of the illegal alien
population. FAIR defines ``illegal alien'' as anyone who entered the
United States without authorization or anyone who unlawfully remains
once his/her authorization has expired. Unfortunately, the U.S.
Government has no central database containing information on the
citizenship status of everyone lawfully present in the United States.
The overall problem of estimating the illegal alien population is
further complicated by the fact that the majority of available sources
on immigration status rely on self-reported data. Given that illegal
aliens have a motive to lie about their immigration status in order to
avoid discovery, the accuracy of these statistics is dubious at best.
All of the foregoing issues make it very difficult to assess the
current illegal alien population of the United States.
However, FAIR now estimates that there were at least 15.5 million
illegal alien residents as of the beginning of 2022. This estimate
takes into account drastic, ongoing increases in illegal immigration
under the Biden administration. This estimate also includes some
categories of individuals without legal status, like DACA recipients
and parolees, who are illegal aliens under law but misleadingly
excluded from many estimates. For more information on how we reached
this figure, refer to the FAIR study ``How Many Illegal Aliens Live in
the United States?''
the cost of illegal immigration to the united states
At the Federal, State, and local levels, taxpayers shell out
approximately $182 billion to cover the costs incurred from the
presence of more than 15.5 million illegal aliens, and about 5.4
million citizen children of illegal aliens. That amounts to a cost
burden of approximately $8,776 per illegal alien/citizen child. The
burden of illegal immigration on U.S. taxpayers is both staggering and
crippling, with the gross cost per taxpayer at $1,156 every year.
Illegal aliens only contribute roughly $32 billion in taxes at the
State, local, and Federal levels. This means that the net fiscal cost
of illegal immigration to taxpayers totals approximately $150.7
billion.
In 2017, FAIR estimated the net cost of illegal immigration at
approximately $116 billion. This means that in just 5 years, the cost
of illegal immigration has increased by nearly $35 billion. This rapid
increase is a consequence of the ongoing border crisis and a lack of
effective immigration enforcement. The sections below further break
down and explain these numbers at the Federal, State, and local levels.
total governmental expenditures on illegal aliens
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
total tax contributions by illegal aliens
total economic impact of illegal immigration
federal
Federal Spending
The approximately $66.4 billion in Federal expenditures
attributable to illegal aliens is staggering, and constitutes an
increase of 45 percent since 2017. This amounts to roughly $3,187 per
illegal alien, per year.
FAIR believes that every concerned American citizen should be
asking our Government why, in a time of increasing costs and shrinking
resources, it is spending such large amounts of money on individuals
who are not authorized to be in the United States. This is an
especially important question in view of the fact that the taxes paid
by illegal aliens offset very little of the enormous costs stemming
from their presence in the country.
Federal Education--$6.6 Billion
Total Federal Medical Expenditures--$23.1 Billion
Total Federal Justice Enforcement Expenditures--$25.1
Billion
Total Federal Welfare Programs--$11.6 Billion
Total Overall Federal Expenditures--$66.5 Billion
Federal Taxes
Taxes collected from illegal aliens help offset fiscal outlays and
therefore must be included in any examination of the cost of illegal
immigration. However, illegal alien advocates frequently cite the
alleged large tax payments made by illegal aliens as a justification
for their unlawful presence and as a reason itself to grant them
amnesty. That argument is nothing more than a red herring. Such claims
rarely look at the costs associated with illegal immigration, and
instead only focus on the amounts contributed to the economy and paid
in taxes.
Most studies grossly overestimate both the taxes actually collected
from illegal aliens and, more importantly, the net amount of taxes
actually paid by them (i.e., the amount of money collected from illegal
aliens and ultimately kept by the Federal Government). A predominant
reason for this is that in recent years, the United States has focused
on apprehending and removing almost solely criminal aliens (and since
President Biden took office, many criminal aliens are now protected
from deportation as well). Because of this, the majority of illegal
aliens seeking employment in the United States now live in an
environment where they have little fear of deportation even if
discovered.
Federal Tax Receipts from Illegal Aliens--$24.6 Billion
Net Federal Impact of Illegal Aliens--$50.2 Billion
state and local
The total fiscal burden of illegal immigration on State taxpayers
has now reached a staggering $115.6 billion, which is 30 percent more
than it was in 2017. The primary reasons for this, aside from a rapid
increase in the illegal alien population, are that a number of States
have opted to expand access to State welfare, education, and medical
programs to illegal aliens. These expansions have led to taxpayers
paying tens of billions in additional funding to cover these costs.
Concerningly, as will be seen in the following section, the taxes
paid by illegal aliens to State and local governments fall far short of
making up for the numerous additional State-funded benefits they are
receiving. Moreover, with many States set to begin offering even more
benefits to illegal aliens, as mentioned previously, these costs are
only expected to increase even further.
State and Local Spending
State Educational Expenditures--$73.3 Billion
State Medical Expenditures--$18.6 Billion
State Administration of Justice Expenditures--$21.8 Billion
State Welfare Expenditures--$2 Billion
State and Local Expenditures--$115.6 Billion
State and Local Taxes Collected
As with Federal costs, State and local costs are offset--to some
degree--by the taxes illegal aliens pay. As noted in the Federal taxes
portion of this section, proponents of illegal immigration argue that
the taxes paid by illegal aliens result in a net boon to State and
local coffers. However, this is a spurious argument. Evidence shows
that the tax payments made by illegal aliens fall far short of covering
the costs of the services they consume.
It is also important to note that calling illegal alien tax
payments a net receipt is a mischaracterization. The overall wage
depression inflicted on local labor markets by the presence of large
numbers of illegal aliens willing to work for less than market rates
has far-reaching fiscal implications that are often not quantified on
average balance sheets. Low-wage workers generally access more
government benefits than higher-paid employees. Furthermore, illegal
aliens also tend to remit large portions of their earnings back to
their home countries, and thus less money is incorporated back into
local economies and less is paid in local sales and excise taxes.
However, because this study looks at the fiscal impacts of illegal
immigration, and tax collections are a fiscal offset, we do our best to
estimate how much of the fiscal costs borne by taxpayers are reduced by
taxes paid by illegal aliens.
Illegal aliens are not typical taxpayers. First, the large
percentage of illegal aliens who work in the underground economy avoid
paying any income tax at all. Those that do work in the formal economy
often receive back more than they pay to the Federal Government through
refundable tax credit programs. Finally, the average earnings of
illegal alien households are considerably lower than earnings of legal
aliens and native-born workers, thus they typically fall into the
lowest tax brackets.
State Taxes Collected--$15.2 Billion
Net State Impact--$100.4 Billion
combined federal state cost tables
Federal and State Fiscal Outlays--$182 Billion
Federal and State Tax Contributions--$31.4 Billion
Net Cost of Illegal lmmigration--$150.7 Billion
Cost of Illegal Immigration by State (PDFs)
notes about this report
A Note on the Lack of Transparency in Government Data
Reporting
Summary of Methodology
Chairman Green. I now recognize Ms. Greene.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Human trafficking is a $150 billion-a-year industry. In
2021, Georgia had one of the highest number of cases per capita
that were reported through trafficking hotlines. The northern
area of Atlanta is well-known. It is one of the highest places
of human trafficking, human sex trafficking of women and
children. Women and girls represent approximately 71 percent of
all trafficking victims globally. More than 90 percent of
detected female victims are trafficked for the purpose of
sexual exploitation. Approximately one-third of all human
trafficking victims are children. This next sentence is hard to
even read because it is our country. The United States is one
of the top destinations for human trafficking and is among the
largest consumers of child sex. The average age of entry into
the commercial sex market is 12 years old.
In the past few weeks, there has been a lot of controversy
about a movie called ``Sound of Freedom''. I can't understand
why anyone would say anything negative about a movie that is
trying to expose child sex trafficking, especially when it
involves our United States border.
Ms. Vaughan, can you tell me, is it a conspiracy theory? Is
child sex trafficking a conspiracy theory?
Ms. Vaughan. It is most certainly not a conspiracy theory.
It occurs far too much. I have met with and hugged survivors
and heard what they have gone through. To refer to it as a
conspiracy is an insult to what they have endured.
Ms. Greene. Is our border a serious issue, the fact that
our border is open, and the amount of people coming across our
border, is that contributing to child sex trafficking?
Ms. Vaughan. It is most definitely contributing to the
problem of not only child sex trafficking, but forced labor and
domestic servitude and debt bondage, as we've discussed today.
Ms. Greene. Is our current administration's border policies
contributing to child sex trafficking?
Ms. Vaughan. They are certainly facilitating it, yes. So
it's happening with more frequency as a result of the loose
policies at the border and the lack of enforcement, frankly, in
the interior of the country as well that would help rescue some
of these survivors--or at least turn them into survivors as
opposed to victims.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Ms. Vaughan.
Fentanyl deaths are at an all-time high, 300 Americans
dying every single day from fentanyl. Having a top government
official on the Mexican cartels' payroll helped the cartels
operate with impunity, moving tons of drugs around the world
and make billions. It cost the cartels as little as $.10 to
produce the fentanyl-laced fake prescription pill--$.10. That
is sold in the United States for as much as $10 to $30 per
pill.
Mr. Maltz, with your experience in your career in the DEA,
is the amount of fentanyl coming across our border, is this an
all-time high?
Mr. Maltz. Yes. I mean, this is the greatest drug threat
we've ever faced in the history of the country. But I want to
add that it's really not a drug, it's a chemical weapon coming
out of China. Just like the K2, the spice now, the xylazine,
that is rotting people from the inside out. This is deliberate,
in my opinion, my expert opinion, from all the years of doing
this. I lived this nightmare starting in about 2008, and then
fentanyl started 2012. This is deliberate, and I would say
based on my experience, it's like--just like the Afghans used
to say, selling heroin to the West is a Jihad against America.
Well, for China, they're undermining, they're destroying our
country and they're sitting back using the Mexican cartels to
do the dirty work.
Ms. Greene. I agree with you Mr. Maltz. I believe, and I
would ask your opinion as well, with the Biden administration's
policies allowing the Mexican cartels to traffic the amount of
poison fentanyl that is coming across China, it seems to be it
is not negligence. It is not that they don't know it is
happening, they know it is happening. It is hard to deny 300
Americans dying every single day from fentanyl. But would you
agree that the Biden administration's policies is helping the
Mexican cartels traffic this Chinese poison fentanyl into the
United States?
Mr. Maltz. Little boy, 3 years old, from Kentucky--and this
is his mother in the coffin here with the kid because of
fentanyl. It's happening every day all over the country. I deal
with the families, I know. That's really sad. It's very sad
that the current administration overturned strong homeland
security policies that kept us all safe. That's my passion. I
mean, I can't believe this is happening to this great country.
Ms. Greene. I agree with you, Mr. Maltz. It seems that
border security should be our utmost important issue that we
are working on, not only to stop child sex trafficking, human
trafficking, but also to prevent the poison of 300 Americans a
day.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Green. Thank you. The gentlelady yields.
I now recognize Mr. Garcia for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just want to also, just to be clear, just to review for the
hearing, Democrats want to solve drug trafficking, we want to
solve human trafficking, and certainly want to solve any sort
of arms trafficking, which funds the cartels. What we don't
want, and what some on this committee are hell-bent on doing,
is we don't want to demonize or scapegoat immigrants, refugees,
and people that need the most help. We are interested in real
solutions, not going along with Republican attacks and the
crusade to launch fake impeachments of Secretary Mayorkas for
political gain.
Now, I do want to start with a question. Now, less than a
year after the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh, which we
know killed 11 worshippers, a terrorist shot up a Walmart in El
Paso, killing 23 people. Like the Tree of Life shooter before
him, the murderer in El Paso believed he was fighting in a war
to end ``Hispanic invasion of Texas''.
Mr. Jones, yes or no, is there an invasion of Texas at the
Southern Border by immigrants?
Mr. Jones. No, sir. We are now in a new phase. We are a
Nation overrun.
Mr. Garcia. A Nation overrun. No longer an invasion. You
don't believe there is an invasion going on?
Mr. Jones. I'm saying we're even beyond an invasion.
Mr. Garcia. OK. Because you have on Twitter and on numerous
occasions said that there is actually an invasion that is being
caused by the U.S. Government, similar to the same words that
have been said in this horrific shooting. So I just want to
know that words actually cause impacts and can be quite
dangerous here and across the country.
Our country needs responsible leadership. It needs border
security. Of course Democrats agree with that. I also want to
note, just to clarify the record, that more than 90 percent of
hard drugs such as fentanyl enter the United States through
legal crossings at ports of entry, which continues to be
forgotten over and over again. Democrats have increased funding
for ports of entry in the Government funding package last year,
which Republicans, of course, overwhelmingly opposed.
So we keep hearing over and over again solutions that are
not serious, which is why we never seem to discuss treatment
programs here in this committee. There is no answers to how to
improve access to health care or tackle the mental health
crisis happening in our country. We just keep having the same
Groundhog Day hearing over and over again, blaming migrants for
a drug crisis that continues to replay itself hearing after
hearing.
I want to just real quickly just go down the list and ask
each of you yes or no, yes or no for each of you. Yes or no,
solving the fentanyl crisis must involve addressing not only
the supply, but also the demand is coming from the United
States? Mr. Jones, is that correct?
Mr. Jones. It is. Also we have to remember where the demand
is being supplied from.
Mr. Garcia. Just a yes or no. So yes. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Jones. Well, you have to remember what the cartels have
done now is----
Mr. Garcia. Sir, this is my time. I just asked you for a
yes or no. Thank you.
Mr. Jones. Yes.
Mr. Garcia. Ms. Vaughan, is that correct?
Ms. Vaughan. Well, when a teenager ingests fentanyl----
Mr. Garcia. Do we have to also----
Ms. Vaughan [continuing]. That they think is Adderall, I
wouldn't call that displaying demand.
Mr. Garcia. So you would not agree that U.S. demand is not
part of the fentanyl crisis?
Ms. Vaughan. I think it is part of it.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
Mr. Maltz.
Mr. Maltz. Absolutely. Demand is a disaster right now.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
Ms. Felbab-Brown.
Ms. Felbab-Brown. Yes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
Second question, just a yes or no, please. Mr. Jones, have
you ever received a direct order from the President to stand
down or open the border?
Mr. Jones. Have I received a direct order from the
President to stand down on the border?
Mr. Garcia. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Jones. No, sir.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
Mr. Maltz, have you?
Mr. Maltz. No.
Mr. Garcia. Ms. Vaughan, are you aware of any such orders
that have ever happened?
Ms. Vaughan. Am I aware of?
Mr. Garcia. Of orders directly from the President?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. No, I----
Mr. Garcia. To stand down and open the borders?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. I don't have any----
Mr. Garcia. Ms. Felbab-Brown, have you ever heard of that?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. No.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much.
Also want to just real briefly ask you about some of the
border policies, though, that have been proposed by some of my
friends on this committee and on the other side.
Ms. Felbab-Brown, do you think it would be a good idea to
build a water-filled trench with alligators along the border?
Would that be helpful in stopping the border crisis?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. No.
Mr. Garcia. No? Interesting. Do you think that if we shot
migrants in the legs and stopped them from coming over, do you
think that would be helpful?
Ms. Felbab-Brown. No.
Mr. Garcia. So those policies were actually proposed by
former President Donald Trump, just to be very clear. Like
Members of this committee, I am very concerned that we continue
to have this hearing to essentially put down immigrants. I
immigrated to this country when I was a young kid. I am proud
to be a very proud American that earned and gained my
citizenship. I hope that in future committees we could stop
demonizing immigrants.
With that, I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for his closing remarks.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
To say the least, it has been a journey the last 3 hours.
Mr. Chairman, I remain extremely concerned that the committee
continues to focus its attention on a baseless attempt to
impeach Secretary Mayorkas to the exclusion of its legitimate
legislative and oversight work.
As Representative Magaziner outlined, the Department of
Homeland Security, under the leadership of Secretary Mayorkas,
has taken unprecedented law enforcement actions to disrupt and
dismantle the cartels. The notion that Secretary Mayorkas is
working to advance cartel crime in America, as this hearing
title suggests, is outrageous. He is working to combat it. This
is a monumentous task, one that entirety of the Biden
administration is focused on. This committee should be focused
on how we can help the administration in those efforts. This
should be bipartisan. In the past, it has been bipartisan.
But now we need to look no further than the previous title
for this hearing, which accused President Biden and Secretary
Mayorkas of being accomplices to crime. To understand the goal
of this so-called investigation, I will remind everyone that
Chairman Green struck that title from the record because it
didn't adhere to House rules. We can also look at the Members
who accused Secretary Mayorkas of being derelict in his duties
before their so-called investigation has even concluded. That
doesn't seem to matter. The investigation has closed before it
is even open.
They are explicit about this. In fact, the hearing that
launched this investigation was called ``Open Borders, Closed
Case: Secretary Mayorkas' Dereliction of Duty on the Border''.
That is right, closed case. This doesn't sound like a good
faith investigation. Releasing a report today without any
consultation with Democrats isn't a good faith effort at
bipartisanship. Nonetheless, I am grateful for the witnesses
for appearing here today.
This is America and we have an opportunity to voice our
opinions. The greatness of this country is that we can do it
without any fear of a cartel or anything doing anything to us.
But also the greatness of it is that at some point, as
Americans, we can come together. It is a process. But I don't
think citing Secretary Mayorkas, who has been here as Secretary
2 years, 6 months, is the way to go.
Democrats are prepared to work with Republicans. We have
put our votes where our concerns have been. We actually support
comprehensive immigration reform. We support fully funding the
men and women who protect us along the border. Our votes
reflect that. Our votes will continue to reflect that.
So I thank our witnesses, those who are in law enforcement,
for their service. But you know, when you look at the Democrats
on this committee and its diversity, it looks a lot like
America today. So I hope you understand that that diversity
makes us strong, but it also says that our policies have to
reflect that diversity. My ancestors came over to this country
in the belly of a ship, didn't want to come, but they came. I
am an American. I only know this country. I will defend the
right for what we do in this country and for others who used to
come because we invited them to come because we were the
shining star. Now, for whatever reason, we have decided that we
don't want anybody else because we have enough. I reject that
notion. Sure, comprehensive immigration will get us there.
President Reagan knew we had a problem. He solved the problem
right off the bat. He said, I am going to let everybody who is
here stay here. That backlog, he wiped it out with an Executive
Order.
We can do anything we want as Americans. But to demonize
people who travel thousands of miles to try to get to our
border because what we stand for is not our value system. Our
value system is what everybody else would like to be like. I
don't ever want to change it. Comprehensive immigration reform,
not impeachment, is the way for us to get there.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Green. The gentleman yields.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Deeply
appreciate it. I am sure the Ranking Member knows that
immigration reform is handled in the Judiciary Committee and
not here, but I do appreciate him bringing up the need for it.
I will talk to Mr. Jordan and encourage him to take that up.
We heard today from the Ranking Member about how
embarrassed he is that this committee has held 9 hearings on
the Southwest Border. We have heard from our witnesses, though,
that the horrific actions of the cartels are worsening
secondarily to the policies of this administration. We all know
the process. They allowed instant parole, they stopped
detention, they stopped deportation, the catch-and-release
policies happened and the migrants called home, millions have
come. Make no mistake, there was no change in crime or
corruption or economic conditions in Latin America. Actually,
since COVID is gone, the economic conditions in Latin America
have gotten better. The mass migration is secondary to the
policies of this administration, period. There is no legitimate
argument to suggest otherwise. Even Merrick Garland agreed that
the cartels have taken advantage of these policies and are
trafficking large groups to overwhelm the Border Patrol and
then pass nefarious individuals the gotaways and drugs around
them.
The Attorney General recognizes it. Perhaps if the Minority
party owned that current administration is failing, perhaps if
the administration addressed the problem, we could move on. But
the numbers are not going down. CBP's One app shell game, not
releasing the OFO numbers, moving the numbers from crossing
over to the ports of entry and then giving automatic parole to
those individuals, not decreasing the incentive. They are still
coming. The drug cartels will continue to take advantage of it,
just like Merrick Garland said. We have allowed automatic
parole through this app and those numbers are not being
counted. The border is open. The incentive for mass migration
remains. As I said, they are coming. The drug cartels are
seizing the opportunity.
My Democrat colleagues have said it is a waste of time to
look into cartel crime. They said it was a waste of time to
address the dead Americans to fentanyl. Nine Committee hearings
is too many. They say look at all the policies that this
administration has done. Well, they are not working. Fix it and
maybe we will stop these hearings. I happen to believe
personally, as do many people in this country, that the
Southwest Border, the human trafficking, the overdose deaths,
the cartel crime, is the greatest threat to this country. So
yes, we are going to continue until the border is controlled
and the cartels are stopped. When Americans stop dying, then we
will stop these hearings.
Open border, drug cartels seizing the day, partnering with
gangs that have taken over the criminal activity in many of our
cities, that is what is happening. The Dems on this panel don't
want to discuss it.
No one has denigrated immigration today. Not a single
individual has picked on a particular race of individuals or
anything, yet that is what they want to imply. I am offended by
that. This is about migration policies that have resulted in
the drug cartels taking advantage of them and killing
Americans.
I hope the media is paying attention. Americans are dying
and the left is saying our committees investigating this as an
embarrassment. Sixty-one percent of Americans get it, though.
That is the percentage of Americans who say that our border is
not controlled by us, yet investigations are an embarrassment.
As for impeachment, my Democrat colleagues keep saying how
this is somehow an impeachment effort. I have never used those
words, not here in this committee and not at this supposed
recording that they keep talking about.
They also say that somehow this discussion is racist. It is
not racist to say we have a problem at our Southern Border. It
is not racist to say that the cartels are seizing this
opportunity of our open border and the automatic parole and the
mass waves of people who are coming. It is not racist to say
that. The only reason they bring up that it is racist or that
we are trying to impeach, or it is some kind of dog-and-pony
show is because they can't tell you that Americans aren't
dying. They can't say, oh, look, the numbers are going down on
Americans dying due to fentanyl, look, the drug cartel crime is
going down in America. They can't make a valid argument against
those facts and so they say we are racist or imply that we are
racist, or that we somehow have some game here, or that it is
embarrassing that we have had 9 committee hearings on this.
Well, I will tell you when the committee hearings will end.
They will end when this administration starts fixing the
problem. They will end when the White House recognizes that
their Secretary of Homeland Security isn't doing his job. That
is called a dereliction of duty. That is when the hearings will
end.
It is the job of this committee to get to the bottom of
what is going on and we will do it. The Democrats are on
record, they think this Homeland Security Committee, its
investigation of the border, the oversight of the border is
embarrassing. They don't want these hearings because they don't
want the light shined on what is going on. The decisions made
by this White House and the DHS Secretary.
Well, like I said, we will not stop until we get to the
bottom of it and the problem gets fixed, period.
Again, I thank our witnesses for being here.
As I said, this doesn't end these hearings, but it does end
this one. The committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:11 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[all]