Tuesday, December 24, 2019

PAY RAISES AND TRAINING EXPAND TIGHT LABOR MARKET - PELOSI SAYS WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF UNREGISTERED DEMOCRAT VOTERS JUMPING THE BORDERS NOW TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED


Pay Raises and Training Expand in Donald Trump’s Tight Labor Market

US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up during a Make America Great Again rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, April 27, 2019. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
9:18

Companies will face greater pressure in 2020 to recruit and train blue-collar Americans and also to pay extra wages, say company officials and economists.
Under the headline, “Employers Turn to On-the-Job ‘Boot Camps’ to Fill Out Workforce,” the Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 22:
LOS ALAMOS, N.M.—Michael Colyer doubled his salary when he got into a program that trains workers to monitor toxic waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Mr. Colyer, 40, has lived in the shadow of the sprawling nuclear facility most of his life, but thought a job there was out of reach because he lacked a college education. “Los Alamos is kind of like a mining town,” Mr. Colyer said. “The lab is the business here, and without a degree, it’s hard to get in.”
His break came through one of several short-term job training programs, or boot camps, launched this year in New Mexico aimed at lowering unemployment and training workers for hard-to-fill jobs, a task employers across the country have struggled with in a tight labor market.
The Idaho Press reported December 22:
“There are not a lot of people to choose from,” [Sam Wolkenhauer, an economist for the Idaho labor department,] said. “So you are competing for a small pool of workers.”
Dan McMackin, spokesperson for United Parcel Service, or UPS, said the company is looking to add 200 seasonal employees in the Boise area. “The pay range is from $14, up from $11 last year, up to about $30 an hour depending on the job,” he said.
Like UPS, Wolkenhauer said, “companies will have to offer higher wages, because they are bidding against each other or will have to come up with other ways to recruit people.”
The modest pay raises are good news — although not great news — for Americans during President Donald Trump’s third Christmas. The good news likely will help Trump’s reelection change, especially because the wage benefits are also flowing to Americans in sidelined states, such as Ohio.
“US firms keep hiring, easing worries of weakening economy,” the Associated Press reported December 6:
Some recruiters have overhauled their approach to hiring and retention as the competition for workers has tightened. Beth Thress, vice president of human resources at a Cincinnati-based company that owns two senior living centers, said it became harder to retain nursing aides and housekeepers once such retailers as Walmart and Target increased their pay.
So Thress went to the board of Maple Knoll Communities, a nonprofit that employs 675 people, and won approval to raise starting pay. She also offered more flexible schedules and set up an emergency fund for employees. “There’s just a lot more competition, you’ve got meet their needs in some form or fashion,” she said. “It’s been a real shift in mentality.”
Becky Frankiewicz, president of Manpower Group North America, says her organization often tells its corporate clients to consider loosening their job listing criteria. “We are counseling companies to look at the requirements they set for a job and ask if they are really mandatory or just nice to have,” she said.
The companies are trying to find, train, and recruit sidelined Americans because Trump’s “Hire  American” policy is preventing Congress from delivering more foreign workers to U.S. companies via the nation’s immigration routes. The resulting shortage of non-college workers is forcing companies to raise pay for blue-collar workers at a faster rate than the pay gains for college-trained workers.


The chart’s blue line shows stable pay raises for college graduates, so disproving the industry’s routine claims of a college graduate labor shortage.
Business groups have been using a variety of strategies to minimize pay raises since Trump was inaugurated. For example, they have pressured Congress to block border security measures — so allowing at least 500,000 migrant adults over the southern border since 2017. They failed to prevent a cut back in legal refugees, but they have blocked cutbacks on legal immigration and have largely blocked reform of the guest worker programs that import at least 600,000 laborers each year.
Investment firms on Wall Street also use their computer-assisted oversight over many companies’ payroll plans to pressure CEOs to keep pay raises to the minimum.
Business groups also claim that the wage raises are caused by Trump’s tax cuts, not by his curbs on migrant workers. But employers and investors generally oppose wage raises — until their workforces start leaving for better options at other firms.
The business strategies have paid off, partly. In 2018, 62 percent of employees did not get pay raises. But in 2019, Trump’s zig-zag immigration policies and the market pressure forced that no-raise number down 50 percent.
“Of the near 49 percent who did see higher pay over the past 12 months, about 28 percent received a raise, while 12 percent found a better paying job and 10 percent found both,” WHAS11.com reported, adding:
Those with lower income and education levels were less likely to see a pay raise, according to the survey. The majority (or 64 percent) of households making less than $30,000 didn’t see any kind of boost to their pay in the past 12 months. That compares with 52 percent of those making between $30,000 and $49,999; and 43 percent of those who make between $50,000 and $74,999.
People who switch jobs are more likely to get pay raises, the report said, adding:
Households that bring in less than $30,000 a year were most likely to look for a new job over the next 12 months, with nearly two out of five (or 37 percent) reporting so. Those with no more than a high school diploma also looked more willing to start their job search, with 33 percent reporting, as opposed to a quarter of those who have some college and 20 percent who have a degree.
The pay raises in the blue, red, and orange chart, however, are being kept lower than otherwise because the federal government brings in roughly one million immigrants every year, just as four million young Americans try to find jobs.
Business advocates are complaining about the pay raises that tend to force down stock prices on Wall Street:
The labor market challenge has worsened even though economic growth has slowed a bit in 2019. Demographics drive the problem. The scariest chart about the future shows virtually no growth in the working age population in the decade from 2020 through 2030.
But it’s even worse than the scary chart shows, because businesses have been hiring the least-attractive job applicants: those without diplomas, without work experience, and with prison records. These are not the preferred applicants, but they are available. Most of these new hires will turn out to be good employees, but many will not hit the ground running with high productivity, reliability and customer service. This means that many of the people who will be available in 2020 are even less attractive than those who got jobs in 2019.
Businesses’ hope of minimizing pay raises is becoming more difficult as the economy sucks up the unemployed, disabled, and sidelined workers. The Tampa Bay Times reported December 20:
Florida’s unemployment rate dropped to a historic low of 3.1 percent in November, according to state figures released Friday. That’s a feat the state has only achieved two times in the past 40 years, the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity said.
“Oregon’s unemployment rate in November was the lowest its been in at least 43 years, according to the state employment department,” the Register-Guard reported December 23.
College graduates are gaining too, but not as much as blue-collar workers because the federal government allows companies to keep roughly 1.5 million foreign college graduates workers in U.S white-collar jobs.

So 500 US graduates lost jobs b/c huge Indian outsourcer imported 500 workers via the B-1 no-work visa.
A private lawsuit exposed the crime.
No response by feds. A Democrat AG set a tiny $800k fine.
IOW, woke US grads robbed by bipartisan open borders. http://bit.ly/2Z1vPwB 

188 people are talking about this

A second report in the Wall Street Journal said on December 20 companies are trying to recruit college graduates early:
Many employers are using internships, boot camps and other after-school programs to net promising candidates before they earn their degrees, chief information officers say.
Mark Boxer, Cigna Corp. ’s CIO, said the highest placement area for new college hires is in the company’s cybersecurity unit. To extend the reach of its recruiting efforts, the health insurer developed urban boot camps aimed at attracting underrepresented job candidates, including women and veterans, Mr. Boxer said.
Elizabeth Hackenson, CIO at France-based industrial company Schneider Electric SE, said internal training programs are key to overcoming a shortage of qualified enterprise architects, data scientists and engineers, and job candidates with skills in robotics process automation, chatbots and artificial intelligence.



EconomyImmigrationPoliticsH-1BHire AmericanJ-1salariestight labor marketvisa workerswages



THE JOKE OF 

HOMELAND SECURITY



ICE Finds Tunnel Under Arizona Border, Seizes 200 Pounds of Drugs

ICE agents find drug smuggling tunnel crossing Mexican border. (Photo: ICE/HSI)
Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations
2:43
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents discovered a drug-smuggling tunnel that extended from a house in Nogales, Arizona, to a wastewater pipeline leading to Mexico. The discovery led to the seizure of more than 200 pounds of drugs.

ICE agents seize more than 200 pounds of drugs from smugglers’ tunnel. (Photo: ICE/HSI)
ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents executed a search warrant on a house in Nogales during the evening of December 17. During the search, the agents found an 82-foot-long tunnel buried eight feet underground, according to information obtained from ICE officials.
Officials reported the tunnel stretched to a breach in the International Outfall Interceptor (IOI) gravity wastewater pipeline. The pipeline runs from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico across the border to Rio Rico, Arizona.
Officials said the tunnel included a sophisticated ventilation system and was substantially reinforced to prevent collapse. They estimate that smugglers operated the tunnel for a few months.
During the search of the home and tunnel, agents seized nearly 200 pounds of methamphetamine, two pounds of white heroin, nearly three pounds of cocaine, and more than six pounds of fentanyl. The agents arrested two people suspected of drug smuggling and seized a vehicle.
“It comes at no surprise that HSI special agents on the BEST and those on the Joint Port Enforcement Group (JPEG) dismantled an operational drug tunnel along the border,” Scott Brown, special agent in charge for HSI Phoenix, said in a written statement. “As this investigation makes clear, we remain focused on exposing border crime and combating the cartels’ increasingly unabashed underground smuggling tactics.”
Officials reported the investigation that led to the tunnel’s discovery began earlier this year. Agents received information about large quantities of narcotics being smuggled through the IOI. Following information developed during the investigation, ICE agents obtained a warrant to search the home and found the tunnel.
Agents arrested Jovany Robledo-Delgado and Jesus Martinez Selgado. Both men are reported to be Mexican nationals. Officials did not disclose the alleged smugglers’ immigration status.
The two Mexican men appeared before a federal court on Wednesday.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.


U.S. Citizen Killed in Mexico While Waiting to Cross Port of Entry into Texas

Fuerza Tamaulipas
Tamaulipas Government
2:07

A U.S. citizen in line to cross into Texas at an international port of entry died during a failed carjacking attempt in Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The fatal incident follows a series of recent armed robberies and carjackings in the Mexican border city’s downtown district.
The carjacking took place on Monday evening at the Reynosa-Hidalgo Port of Entry when 41-year-old Oscar Manuel Resendez was waiting to cross into Texas, Tamaulipas law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas. As the victim sat in a small SUV, a gunman tried to rob him. Resendez got out of his vehicle and tried to fight off the robber but was shot at least once.
Other motorists tried to help but the victim died next to his vehicle. The gunman ran away before authorities could arrive. The Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office responded to the scene for documentation and began the process of notifying next-of-kin. Since Resendez was a dual citizen, it remains unclear if the U.S. Consulate will take an active role in the case.
The incident comes at a time when Reynosa is seeing a spike in carjackings, kidnappings, and robberies as the holiday season approaches. Over the weekend, a group of Good Samaritans helped a kidnapping victim escape at a bank in the city as gunmen tried to force him to empty his account. No injuries were reported.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     


Migrants, Human Smuggler Busted in Boat off California Coast
CBP agents arrest nine illegal aliens off the California coast near San Diego. (Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Air and Marine Operations)
Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Air and Marine Operations
2:12

An Air and Marine Operations crew located a boat off the coast of California and helped disrupt a human smuggling operation. They teamed up with Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement to seize the boat and arrest the smuggler with his human cargo.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) crew intercepted a suspicious boat of the coast of San Diego, California, on December 19. The sighting followed a tip from the Joint Harbor Operations Center, according to information obtained from San Diego Sector CBP officials.
The AMO agents boarded the Bayliner pleasure craft and took control of the vessel. Agents navigated the boat back to port where they contacted U.S. Border Patrol agents to assist, officials stated.
San Diego Sector Border Patrol agents met the AMO crew at the dock and conducted an immigration interview with the nine passengers loaded onto the 24-foot boat. Agents determined all nine passengers, including the captain/human smuggler, to be Mexican nationals who were illegally present in the U.S.
The eight men and one woman ranged in age from 20 to 65 officials reported. Agents placed all nine people under arrest and transported them to the Border Patrol station for processing, a medical evaluation, and a biometric background investigation.
AMO officials reportedly seized the Bayliner.
The agents turned the boat’s captain over to ICE officials who will prepare charges for alien smuggling, according to information provided by CBP officials.
Since the beginning of the current fiscal year, which began on October 1, AMO agents have been involved in the apprehension of 4,153 migrants while working with CBP and DHS law enforcement officials.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.


VIDEO: Newsmaker with CBP Head Mark Morgan
More than 450 miles of wall expected to be completed
or in the works by the end of 2020

Washington, D.C. (December 23, 2019) – Video and transcript are now available from Friday's Center for Immigration Studies Immigration  Newsmaker conversation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan. Mr. Morgan spoke with Jessica Vaughan, the Center's director of policy studies, emphasizing progress on the border wall, the ongoing crisis at the southwest border, the increase in migration from extra-continental countries, drug smuggling, the dangers of New York's new driver's license law, and work on an entry-exit tracking system.

Video: https://cis.org/Immigration-Newsmaker/Conversation-Customs-Border-Protection-Mark-Morgan
Transcript: https://cis.org/Transcript/Conversation-Customs-Border-Protection-Mark-Morgan

Highlights from Commissioner Morgan:

Southwest Border Update
"[Cartels and human smuggling organizations] saw that we were making progress towards stemming the flow of illegal immigration from the Northern Triangle countries, really taking billions of dollars out of their pockets, and they shifted. So they're shifting towards supporting additional migration from extra-continental countries as well as Mexican nationals...Indians, Africans, Haitians, Brazilians, I mean, the list goes on and on and on...we're seeing thousands of each of those groups. And we're seeing – from this time last year we're seeing an increase sometimes 200, 300 percent of what we saw last year."

"The families from the Northern Triangle countries – and again, since May that's gone down 85 percent, overall the flow has gone down 70 percent – we're still at crisis numbers. We're still averaging between 1,400 and 1,500 daily."

"Congress has still failed to pass a single piece of meaningful legislation that would address this [immigration crisis]...It would take them 15 minutes, single piece of paper, and they could end probably 90, 95 percent of this immigration crisis that we're in. It would say three things. It would address the Flores Settlement Agreement... [allow us to send] unaccompanied minors from the Northern Triangle countries [to their home countries] and the credible fear standard...I'd probably throw in there give ICE some more bed space."

"Regardless of how great Mexico's stepping up and the Northern Triangle countries, at the end the United States, we cannot rely on other countries to fix our broken system... to have a durable, lasting solution to fixing our current legal framework, Congress has to act."

"What we're seeing now is an increase in the extra-continentals and we're seeing an increase in Mexican nationals, single adults and families, of which those initiatives right now with Mexico aren't being applied. But we're working with Mexico to expand that. We're also working with the government of Guatemala and Honduras on the ACA, the Asylum Cooperative Agreement, to also expand that so that they will also receive Mexican nationals as well."

"The ironic thing is right now we have other countries that are stepping up, seeing this as a regional crisis, addressing it as a regional crisis, and they're actually doing more to help us than our own Congress is."

"We just released funding back to the Northern Triangle countries, millions of dollars specifically designed to improve their asylum capacity as well as their interior enforcement ability to go after the cartels and the smuggling organizations."

National Security Crisis (Drugs, Cartels, and Gangs)
Last year, CBP apprehended "Over a thousand gang members... seized over 800,000 pounds of drugs. Think about that stat: 800,000 pounds. Air and Marine Branch, they contributed to, with other partners, another 300,000 pounds of drugs. The four hard narcotics – heroin, meth, fentanyl, cocaine – all those hard narcotics went up last year. Fentanyl, RGV alone – one sector out of nine sectors – seized 11 pounds. That's enough to kill 2 million people in the United States."

"Every town, city, and state in this country is a border town, city, and state, and because mark my words, if you have a meth overdose in Ohio, for example, mark my words, that meth came from the southwest border."

"When we talk about the crisis at the border, when we talk about the need for a wall as one tool, it's not just about stemming the flow of illegal immigration. It's about also stopping the drugs pouring into this country that killed 68,000 people last year."

"Why is there so much violence in Mexico? Why are the cartels warring with each other for control over the plaza, control over the smuggling routes? Because it's so profitable... it's a multibillion-dollar industry for them every single year. We estimate that the cartels, over $60 billion that they have."

A conservative estimate of cartel revenue from smuggling - $4 billion a year.

The Wall
Addressing some false narratives. A wall "is something that the experts have asked for. This is something that the Border Patrol agents and the leadership has asked for. This isn't something that the president asked for. This president asked the experts what they needed and he's delivering on what they have asked for."

"When you talk about the wall, it's not just a wall; it's a wall system. And it's not just a wall system; it's a part of a multilayer strategy of infrastructure, technology, and personnel. Everywhere along the southwest border where those three approaches have coalesced together effectively in a strategic location, it has absolutely made an impact both on the illegal flow of migration as well as drugs and bad people, every single place that that has been implemented. And we have the data and we can show that."

"I can say without hesitation, without doubt, every mile of new wall that's being built, this country is more safe because of it, because it absolutely increases the Border Patrol's operational capacity to be able to do what they need to do."

"... when I say I want the wall, it's not a political statement for me; it's from a law enforcement perspective. It's having the honor to be in this position and give the tools – the most effective tools – to the men and women of the Border Patrol..."

"This new funding that came [$1.375 billion] I'm absolutely confident not only are we going to, you know, get to somewhere between 4(00), 450 miles that are built, but I think we're actually going to exceed that. I think we're going to have more miles either under contract, being built, or ready to be built even exceeds the 450 by the end of 2020."

"Throughout the southwest border, all 2,000 miles, we estimated at least 150,000 [evaded our security at the border]. I think that's conservative. I think it's higher...a lot of people will say, well, those numbers are small. Well, how many is acceptable? How many? How many – how many rapists, how many murderers, how many pedophiles are acceptable? How many gang members? How many MS-13 members are acceptable for us to allow into this country? That's the question we should be asking. From my perspective, law enforcement for a lot of decades trying to safeguard this country, the answer is easy. It's zero. That's why we need to strengthen our borders. That's why we need the wall, along with other things."

Border Patrol Agents
"There were 4,900 rescues by Border Patrol agents and officers last year. So they saw somebody in need. They didn't stop to say, wait a minute, are you trying to illegally enter this country? No, they didn't ask that. They didn't ask, hey, what's your nationality? No, that didn't happen. What they saw is somebody, a human being, in need, and they immediately went into action..."

"Healthcare. We average between 70 to 80 hospital visits just along the southwest border every day."

Entry-Exit System
"We've expanded [biometric entry-exit] to 16 airports ...What I like to say we do is not facial recognition because recognition takes on a different kind of term. Really, what CBP is doing is facial comparison... And that's a very important distinction. So we actually have a database, right, a manifest where we have those photos, and we actually compare that one to one...sometimes when you look at facial recognition you're thinking some sort of surveillance program. That's not what we're doing."

"We have put millions and millions through this new biometric facial comparison process at a 98 to 99 percent accuracy rate."

"On the land side... in 2020 we're going to expand it to four areas on the southwest border."

New York's "Green Light Law"
"I can't have enough strong reaction. It's reckless. It's irresponsible. It's politics at its worst. I'm telling you – I'm telling the American people that this policy by New York will absolutely make this country less safe."

"Anytime you take a legitimate law enforcement tool away from a law enforcement entity, think about that: you're reducing their ability to safeguard this country every single time you're taking away a tool. That's exactly what this – has happened."

WHILE THE U.S. SQUANDERS HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS AND TROOPS TO DEFEND THE BORDERS OF MUSLIM DICTATORS WHO HATE OUR GUTS, MEXICO IS OVERRUN AMERICAN WITH DRUGS!

GRAPHIC: Gulf Cartel Gunmen Burn Rivals Alive in Mexico near Texas Border


Point/Counterpoint: Should Mexican Cartels Be Designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations?


Washington, D.C (December 2, 2019) – The Center for Immigration Studies presents arguments for and against the Trump administration’s actions to designate some Mexican drug trafficking cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO).  An FTO designation triggers powerful American authorities to freeze financial assets, prosecute for activities that support terrorism, and bar entry into the country.

CIS fellow Dan Cadman urges the designation of cartels as FTOs, arguing, “Nine dual-citizen U.S./Mexican Mormons were murdered recently in Mexico, U.S. diplomatic personnel have been brazenly attacked and U.S. enforcement agents murdered on the Mexican side when it suits cartel interests. In U.S. border states and major metropolitan areas, many drug-related murders are the direct result of struggles for control between cartels.” Cadman continues, “We must up our own game. Official designation brings with it a multiplicity of legal authorities and penalties that can make a difference in how the United States responds, in our own interest, to the struggle for control of Mexico.”

CIS fellow Todd Bensman argues that the U.S. hold off designating Mexican Cartels as FTOs as the action could dilute “America's war on 
some 70 currently designated Islamic terrorist groups that aspire, emphatically unlike any of Mexico's cartels, to kill as many Americans as possible on American soil the present war on Jihadists.” He continues, “The sometimes shrill calls, with each new gun battle or atrocity, that Mexican cartels imminently threaten U.S. national security don't hold up under scrutiny, at least not without more evidence. If the U.S. government insists on adding a massive layer of new terrorists to existing U.S. counterterrorism systems, plans for how to resource it and allocate the greater burden among agencies, without taking from the war on terror, should be laid out first.”

FTO designation is a powerful tool. So should the U.S. designate Mexico's major cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under 
Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)?  Section 219 provides that the secretary of state may designate a group as a FTO on finding that it engages in terrorist activity as defined at INA Section 212(a)(3) or terrorism as defined at 22 U.S.C. Section 2656f(d)(2). Does Mexican Cartel conduct meet the threshold definitions, including specifically as a threat to the national security of the United States?
 


Mexico Will Reject U.S. Designations of Cartels as Terrorists, Says AMLO


Mexico’s president announced Monday that he will reject any designation of cartels as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

During his morning press conference, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) said he would not accept the U.S.’s potential designation of cartels as foreign terrorist organizations–which could enable direct actions in Mexico.
“We will never accept that, we are not ‘vendepatrias’ (nation sellers),” Lopez Obrador said.
The president’s statements come after the relatives of nine U.S. women and children who died in a cartel ambush in Sonora revealed they would be meeting with President Donald Trump. The family is expected to ask for some cartels to be labeled as terrorist organizations.
Last week, Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Cabeza de Vaca used the term “narco-terrorism” to refer to the brazen attacks on citizens of Nuevo Laredo by a faction of Los Zetas Cartel called Cartel Del Noreste. Cabeza de Vaca publicly called out Mexico City for past inaction in confronting Los Zetas.
Earlier this year, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) filed legislation for the most violent cartels in Mexico to be labeled as a foreign terrorist organizations, a move that would limit cartel members’ abilities to travel and provide tools to better clamp down on financial transactions, Breitbart Texas reported.
On Monday morning, Lopez Obrador’s foreign relations minister Marcelo Ebrard called designations unnecessary and inconvenient, adding that the U.S. and Mexico have a healthy working relationship in fighting cartels. According to Ebrard, terrorist designations would give the U.S. the legal avenue to take direct action on cartels on Mexican soil.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     

Enough Is Enough’: Josh Hawley Calls for Sanctions on Mexican Cartels


Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said Wednesday that “enough is enough” and called on the U.S. government to sanction Mexican officials and cartel members complicit in trafficking meth and killing Americans.

Hawley called for harsh retribution against the Mexican cartels complicit in ambushing and murdering nine American women and children near the New Mexico border.
In the wake of the attack on Americans, as well as the Mexican cartels’ complicity in Missouri’s meth crisis, the Missouri conservative called for the U.S. government to sanction the cartel members who are “openly slaughtering American citizens.”
“With Mexico, enough is enough. US government should impose sanctions on Mexican officials, including freezing assets, who won’t confront cartels,” Hawley tweeted Wednesday. “Cartels are flooding MO [Missouri] w/ meth, trafficking children, & openly slaughtering American citizens. And Mexico looks the other way.”
Hawley said that just over the last 14 days, there had been over 40 drug overdoses coming from drugs across America’s southern border.
Hawley continued, “In SW Mo last two weeks alone, over 40 drug overdoses & multiple deaths from drugs coming across [the] southern border. Story is the same all over the state. Cartels increasingly call the shots in Mexico, and for our own security, we cannot allow this to continue.”

 · 6h

With Mexico, enough is enough. US government should impose sanctions on Mexican officials, including freezing assets, who won’t confront cartels. Cartels are flooding MO w/ meth, trafficking children, & openly slaughtering American citizens. And Mexico looks the other way

In SW Mo last two weeks alone, over 40 drug overdoses & multiple deaths from drugs coming across southern border. Story is the same all over the state. Cartels increasingly call the shots in Mexico, and for our own security, we cannot allow this to continue


Hawley spent much of his August recess traveling across rural Missouri, learning what matters to the average Missourian.


This AM I had the great privilege of meeting Brittany Tune, a nurse, a mother of two, a follower of God, and a remarkable woman. Born & raised in rural Shannon Co., she has raised two kids on her own while putting herself through nursing school & dedicating her life to others





Brittany says meth is hammering this community. She has many friends & family members who have been touched by this epidemic. She worries about what it means for her own kids, ages 15 & 10. It’s much worse now than when she was growing up, she says






In an interview with Breitbart News in September, Hawley said that meth coming from Mexico is destroying local Missouri communities.
“Come with me to any town, any town in the state of Missouri of any size, and I will show you communities that are drowning in meth, drowning in it. It is literally killing people; it is destroying families it is destroying schools and whole communities,” he said.
“Missouri is a border state,” Hawley said, adding that “we have to got to secure the border to stop the meth” and “stop the flow of illegal immigration.”
Hawley’s remarks about the Mexican cartel attack on Americans mirrors that of President Donald Trump, who said Tuesday that the United States was ready for war against the drug cartels.
“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” the president tweeted.
Trump has campaigned on cracking down on violence on the southern border as well as handling the drug cartels.
During an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Trump said he is “very seriously” thinking of designating the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).
“It’s psychological, but it’s also economic,” Trump told Breitbart News in March. “As terrorists — as terrorist organizations, the answer is yes. They are.”
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) told Breitbart News in May that he would back Trump’s potential designation of the Mexican cartels as FTOs and that seizing cartel leader El Chapo’s assets would build the wall and make the cartels pay for it. In a similar manner to Missouri, Daines told Breitbart News about how Montana has been ravaged by meth from Mexican cartels.
Daines said that by seizing “billions” of El Chapo’s assets, it “would absolutely fulfill President Trump’s promise to build the wall and make Mexico pay for it. In this case, it would be a Mexican cartel paying for it would be an excellent idea.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.


The architect of Mexico's war on cartels was just arrested in Texas and accused of drug trafficking and taking bribes

Business InsiderDecember 10, 2019
45 Comments

Genaro Garcia Luna Mexico
LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images
·         Genaro Garcia Luna, who was Mexico's public-security secretary between 2006 and 2012, was arrested in Texas on Monday.
·         Garcia Luna, the architect of Mexico's campaign against organized crime in the late 2000s, is the latest Mexican official accused of corruption and involvement in drug trafficking.
A former high-ranking Mexican security official who led the country's crackdown on organized crime in the mid-2000s was arrested in the US and been charged with drug-trafficking conspiracy and making false statements.
Genaro Garcia Luna, 51, was arrested in Dallas by US federal agents, according to the US district attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which said it plans to seek his removal to face charges in New York.
"Garcia Luna stands accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes from 'El Chapo' Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel while he controlled Mexico's Federal Police Force and was responsible for ensuring public safety in Mexico," US Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said in the release.
Garcia Luna faces three counts of conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and a fourth count of making false statements with regard to an immigration naturalization application.
Garcia Luna began his career with Mexico's Center for National Security and Investigation in the late 1980s before moving to the federal police in the late 1990s. He was then head of Mexico's federal investigation agency, AFI, between 2001 and 2005 and secretary of public security, then a cabinet-level position in control of the federal police, between 2006 and 2012.
Genaro Garcia Luna Felipe Calderon Mexico
ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/GettyImages
He was 38 when appointed to the latter position by then-President Felipe Calderon but already had nearly 20 years of experience in Mexico's security services, much of it spent tracking organized crime and drug trafficking.
"By his late 20s, he was considered something of a wunderkind," according to a 2008 New York Times profile.
"He really was the architect of Calderon's war on drugs," said Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, who worked with Garcia Luna in Mexico in the 1990s.
That war comprised major military deployments inside the country and the kingpin strategy, which entailed targeting high-level cartel figures in an effort to weaken the cartels. This approach has been criticized for fostering more violence, both by state forces and fragmented cartels.
According to the release, Garcia Luna received millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. In return, the release states, the cartel received safe passage for drug shipments, sensitive law-enforcement information about investigations targeting it, and information about rival cartels — all of which allowed it to move multiton quantities of drugs into the US.
Financial records obtained by the US government showed that by the time Garcia Luna relocated to the US in 2012, he had a personal fortune worth millions of dollars, according to the release, which said he is also accused of lying about those alleged criminal acts on an application for naturalization submitted in 2018.

'Another black eye for Mexico'

El Chapo Joaquin Guzman
Reuters
One detail in the release mirrors allegations made during the trial of Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who was convicted on drug trafficking and other charges in the Eastern District of New York in February.
"On two occasions, the cartel personally delivered bribe payments to Garcia Luna in briefcases containing between three and five million dollars," the release states.
During testimony in November 2018, Jesus "El Rey" Zambada — the youngest brother of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who is considered Guzman's peer at the top of the Sinaloa cartel and now its de facto leader — said the cartel twice made multimillion-dollar payments to Garcia Luna.
A $3 million payment, which "El Rey" said was to Garcia Luna at a restaurant in Mexico City between 2005 and 2006, was to ensure he would pick a specific official as police chief in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state and the cartel's home turf.
"El Rey" said the other payment, between $3 million and $5 million, was in 2007 and was to make sure "he didn't interfere in the drug business" and that "El Mayo" was not arrested. Zambada also said that the Sinaloa cartel and its partners also pooled $50 million in protection money for Garcia Luna.
A press officer for the Eastern District of New York did not immediately respond when asked by email whether the charges unsealed Tuesday against Garcia Luna stemmed from allegations made during Guzman's trial.
At the time, Garcia Luna denied Zambada's claims, calling them a "lie, defamation and perjury." On Tuesday, Calderon said he had heard of Garcia Luna's arrest but was awaiting confirmation and further details, tweeting that his "position will always be in favor of justice and the law."
El Chapo Guzman home town
REUTERS/Roberto Armenta
Vigil, who was the DEA assistant country attache to Mexico during the 1990s, was skeptical of the allegations made during the Guzman trial and said he was "surprised" by the arrest on Tuesday.
"I worked with Genaro Garcia Luna," Vigil said. "We, DEA, had a very good working relationship with Genaro. At that time there were no allegations of corruption. There we coordinated investigations with them, and we never saw any evidence of compromise."
The allegations made during that trial seemed "less than credible," Vigil said, in large part because Guzman was arrested twice during the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who followed Calderon into office in 2012.
But it was possible that a high-ranking Mexican official could obscure activities in one area from their work with the US in another area.
"In terms of what the US sees, [it's] very different than what occurs within the Mexican government, but through time if he were taking bribes, obviously some of those investigations, you would've known if they had been compromised," Vigil said. "But there's some areas that could be compartmentalized in terms of efforts by the Mexican government."
If convicted on the drug-conspiracy charge, Garcia Luna faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life in jail.
"Today's arrest demonstrates our resolve to bring to justice those who help cartels inflict devastating harm on the United States and Mexico, regardless of the positions they held while committing their crimes." Donoghue, the US attorney, said in the release, thanking the DEA, the Department of Homeland Security Investigations, as well as police in New York City and New York state.
Regardless of the outcome of the case, it tarnishes a bilateral relationship in which cooperation against organized crime and drug trafficking has been a major component.
"I don't know what the evidence is against Genaro Garcia Luna," Vigil said Tuesday, "but it certainly is another black eye for Mexico."
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