Blackburn: Cartels, Traffickers Exploiting Unfinished Border Wall Construction
'It's like an open portal for transnational criminal organizations to take advantage of'
Mexican cartels are exploiting the now-abandoned construction roads used to build the border wall under the Trump administration to traffic drugs and illegal migrants into the United States, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) said after touring the southern border in Arizona.
Blackburn accused President Joe Biden of emboldening "coyotes, drug cartels, and gangs" during a Tuesday call with reporters. Segments of the border that were previously difficult to navigate due to mountainous terrain, Blackburn said, are now equipped with abandoned access roads that were used during construction of the wall, which was halted by the Biden administration. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said that cartels and smuggling groups are "nimble enough to take advantage" of the stop in construction and use the roads to access "otherwise very harsh environments."
"The U.S. government put in roads and other infrastructure into these areas that can be otherwise very harsh environments. Now you can get vehicles in much more easily," Vaughan said. "It's like an open portal for transnational criminal organizations to take advantage of. No doubt, this is boom time for cartels and smuggling organizations."
Blackburn's office provided photos to the Washington Free Beacon that show construction roads leading up mountainous regions in which border fencing was not complete prior to Biden's January executive order halting construction. The Republican said that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel—which dominates the territory south of Arizona's border—has stationed lookouts on top of mountains in the area to "surveil our Border Patrol and our law enforcement" and direct gang members.
"Many people don't realize the sophistication of these cartels. These are big, international businesses," Blackburn said Tuesday. "If we are not going to finish this wall and finish building out these roads so that our CBP can use them, then the cartel is just going to pick it up and use these roads for their advantage."
The White House did not return a request for comment.
Border wall and road in Cochise County, Ariz. Photo provided by Sen. Blackburn's office.
Abandoned border wall construction site in Cochise County, Ariz. Photo provided by Sen. Blackburn's office.
Congressional Democrats have also expressed concern that Biden's immigration policies are encouraging Mexican cartels. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D., Texas) said Thursday that Biden's self-described "humane approach" to illegal immigration is being "twisted" by gangs working to traffic migrants into the country.
Shortly after Blackburn returned from Arizona, photos reviewed by the Washington Examiner showed overwhelmed U.S. law enforcement agents being pulled from the border to tend to unaccompanied minors in holding facilities. Vaughan said the ongoing border crisis gives cartels and traffickers a "golden opportunity" to operate "under the radar" with Border Patrol agents sidetracked to cater to humanitarian needs.
"The real worry is that more concerning actors are taking advantage of the chaos," Vaughan told the Free Beacon. "The cartels know more about what's going on in terms of border policy than most Americans do—they're much more nimble, typically, than our own law enforcement agencies."
A massive uptick in illegal immigration in 2016 led to similar circumstances. Then-Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan lamented the "tremendous amount of resources" required to respond to the surge in illegal migrant children at the time. He said agents were forced to "actually make sure the food, the burritos we're providing are being warmed properly," procure "baby powder and baby wipes," and perform other menial tasks.
Illegal border crossings have escalated under Biden, with more than 9,400 minors entering the United States in February, a record for the month. Nearly 16,000 minors are currently in U.S. custody, government officials confirmed Sunday. The overflow comes after Biden urged asylum seekers in 2019 to "immediately surge to the border" should he win the presidency.
Despite the ballooning numbers, the White House has so far declined to refer to the border influx as a "crisis." White House press secretary Jen Psaki instead referred to the ongoing ordeal as a "circumstance" during a Monday briefing.
GAO Launches Probe Into Biden's Freeze on Border Wall Funding
Source: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
As one of his first acts as president, Joe Biden stopped border wall construction and froze the billions Congress allocated for that purpose. Now, according to Politico, Biden is “under investigation” by the Government Accountability Office to “determine whether the new president broke the law by freezing the money in violation of budget rules designed to keep Congress in control of the cash flow.”
Biden under investigation for border wall cash freeze https://t.co/PRDDxXqTIS
— POLITICO Pro (@POLITICOPro) March 23, 2021
In a letter to the GAO last week, dozens of Republican senators said that “operational control of our southern border was compromised and a humanitarian and national security crisis has ensued,” since Biden halted construction and froze the border wall funds. The senators called the actions a “blatant violation of federal law and infringe on Congress’s constitutional power of the purse,” arguing they violate the Impoundment Control Act.
House Republicans also wrote to the GAO as “co-requesters” of the Senate GOP’s letter, asking for an investigation and the office’s legal opinion on the matter.
While Politico notes that an “unfavorable ruling … would bolster Republicans in branding Biden as a rule-breaker as they blame him for the surge of migrants and unaccompanied children at the southern border,” it’s unlikely the president faces “any formal punishment.”
Despite Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisting the border is “secure,” Border Patrol cannot keep up with the influx of migrants. More than 11,000 unaccompanied minors were detained in just the first few weeks of March, the Dallas Convention Center is about to be turned into temporary housing for illegal immigrant teenagers, there are reportedly “inhumane conditions” at overcrowded detention facilities, and the agency is releasing asylum seekers without even scheduling a court date. It’s no wonder a majority of voters now want the border wall finished.
Top Commander: Northern Triangle Migrants Not Facing Systemic Persecution at Home
The governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras do not engage in the kinds of systemic persecution of their citizens that would make them eligible for refugee or asylum status under United States laws, a top U.S. commander recently suggested.
During an underreported exchange at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) questioned Adm. Craig Faller, the U.S. Southern Command leader (SOUTHCOM), about the legal conditions on the ground in the Northern Triangle. This region is comprised of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Cotton asked the SOUTHCOM commander who oversees U.S. military activity in most of Latin America and the Caribbean:
Do the governments of those three [Northern Triangle] countries systematically persecute their own citizens on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, political views, religious belief, or other such categories?
Adm. Faller responded:
I’m in lockstep with our embassies, and we’ve got great diplomats, and we don’t see systematic exploitation. I work with the militaries, and the elements we work with are vetted and trusted, and I find they’re doing the right thing, whether it’s Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador.
Sen. Cotton noted that Northern Triangle citizens heading for the U.S. border are “economic migrants” who do not qualify for asylum or refugee status under American law because the governments of their home countries “do not persecute their own citizens systematically.”
Adm. Faller did not push back against Cotton’s characterization of the commander’s response.
To be eligible for asylum or refugee status, a migrant must face systemic persecution based on race, sex, ethnicity, religion, or political views in their home countries, the Arkansas Republican explained, adding:
An economic migrant is not eligible for asylum. They are not eligible for refugee status. Asylum is designed for people like, say a Hong Konger whose student visa expires and doesn’t want to return to Hong Kong now that the Chinese Communist Party has cracked down on that country.
The reason we have a crisis that our border is because President Biden and his administration opened the border and ended the policies of the Trump administration that made it clear you could not make the very dangerous journey across Mexico; you could not pay smugglers and traffickers thousands of dollars to get to our southern border and then expect to be let in. If you let them in, more will come. That is why we have a crisis at the border.
Cotton urged President Joe Biden to reimpose the Trump-era border policies that effectively stemmed illegal migration to the U.S.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has refused to recognize the surge of migrants at the southern border, particularly comprised of unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle, as a crisis, calling it a “challenge” instead.
Biden border policies, including not expelling unaccompanied children who reach the border, have led to crowded, inhumane conditions in border patrol facilities.
While Republicans blame the Biden measures for the border crisis, noting that it is fueling child sex trafficking, among other problems, the Democrat president blames the previous administration.
Former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, who served under Trump, told National Public Radio (NPR) this week that the previous administration warned the Biden folks that dismantling the former president’s immigration policies would trigger problems at the southern border.
Echoing his Salvadoran counterpart on Tuesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador indicated Tuesday that the Biden administration’s promise of better treatment for migrants is to blame for the border surge.
No comments:
Post a Comment