Migrants look at the Rio Grande, where people are crossing into the United States to seek asylum, in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, on December 22, 2022. (Photo by VERONICA G. CARDENAS/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - The White House on Tuesday addressed concerns that Mexican cartels responsible for the murder of two kidnapped Americans in Mexico could cross the southern border and enter the United States.reported , four Americans were kidnapped and the bodies of two of them were found, according to Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal. The other two Americans were found alive, although one of them was injured. They were all kidnapped after crossing into Matamoros in Tamaulipas, Mexico, which has a level four State Department travel advisory warning.
A poll released Tuesday shows a 44 percent plurality of Americans want less immigration, up four points from a Gallup poll in mid-February.
The poll of 1,247 adults by the Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago shows that only 20 percent of Americans want immigration increased. “Only 11% of Republicans favor increased immigration, along with 27% of Democrats,” outlined the AP’s March 7 statement .
Sixty-five percent of Republicans want less migration, said the poll, which was conducted February 16-20.
Thirty-four percent of all Americans say the inflow should “remains the same as it is,” the poll said.
However, that “same as it is” number is likely inflated by the establishment media’s policy of hiding the huge migration numbers and the growing pocketbook damage to ordinary Americans.
The AP poll matches the rising public opposition to President Joe Biden’s business-backed policy of importing millions of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal migrants for jobs and homes that would otherwise go to better-paid Americans.
Only 28 percent of registered voters believe immigration has been positive for their local economy, and only 38 percent say immigration is good for the United States, according to an August 12-15 survey of 2,025 registered voters conducted for a pro-migration advocacy group.
By a factor of more than two to one, Americans agree companies “should raise wages and try harder to recruit Americans even if it causes the prices of their products to rise,” said a July 20-22 poll by YouGov.com.
Forty percent of Americans want less migration, up from 19 percent in January 2021, said the Gallup poll, released February 13. The 40 percent includes 71 percent of Republicans, 36 percent of independents, and 19 percent of Democrats, according to the poll, which did not describe the scale of Biden’s migration.
The pocket-book-driven shift in public opinion, however, is being dismissed by immigration advocates as merely a normal and temporary reaction to White House policies.
“The thermostatic bounce-back is disappointing, but not particularly surprising,” wrote Noah Smith, a fervent supporter of migration into Americans’ society. “Immigration has always been a core U.S. strength, but right now the country needs new recruits even more than we usually do,” he wrote on February 18.
Smith argued for more immigration because he claims it is needed to bolster high-tech innovation — and also to replace the absent American children who were not born amid a national decline in births:
We need immigrants is to keep our population young. Despite a very small post-pandemic uptick, the country’s total fertility rate has fallen well below the replacement level over the past decade and a half … the America fertility exceptionalism of the 1990s and early 2000s is now a thing of th’ he argued. e past.
Immigration “also increases fertility because immigrants tend to have more kids, ” Smith claimed, even though the report he cited blames the fertility drop-off on federal economic policy:
“[When] you look at young adults — the people who are supposed to be having children — and they were not doing nearly as well,” said Guzzo [Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center]. They were facing all kinds of financial challenges: crushing student debt, a housing bubble that made securing a mortgage virtually impossible for some, jobs that weren’t rewarding or stable or the inability to move to cities where the job growth was [happening because of migration ].
Since the 1990s, the federal government has allowed Wall Street to move millions of manufacturing jobs to cheap-labor countries, and to import millions of workers for low-wage labor in the U.S. consumer economy. The resulting cheap-labor bubble forced down Americans’ wages, shifted wealth and power to Wall Street — and likely reduced Americans’ ability to have the number of children they want.
So far, there is little evidence that the establishment wants to help American families have more kids.
“We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference in November. “The only way [emphasis added] we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the dreamers and all of them,” he said.
Meanwhile, the GOP establishment does not try to win more voters by promising to reduce the pocketbook damage from migration.
Instead, it only uses the migration issue to spike base turnout in elections with ads about border chaos, illegal migration, and drugs.
Like many other migration advocates, Smith wants the establishment to make an immigration deal with the public. But his deal would merely be a card trick because it would simply import more legal migrants in place of fewer illegal migrants.
That kind of deal would allow the establishment to congratulate itself for boosting its stock-market wealth with more migrants — while doing nothing to raise the wages, productivity, and civic status of the many millions of ordinary Americans.
Unsurprisingly, those Americans are growing increasingly alarmed at the establishment’s visceral preference for foreigners over Americans.
The current wave of migrants adds up to a southern border invasion, according to an August 2022 poll commissioned by the left-of-center, taxpayer-supported National Public Radio (NPR). The 54 percent “Invasion” majority includes 76 percent of Republicans, 46 percent of independents, and even 40 percent of Democrats. Just 19 percent of all respondents — or one in five — said the term is false.
Extraction Migration
The federal government has long operated an unpopular economic policy of Extraction Migration . This colonialism-like policy extracts vast amounts of human resources from needy countries, reduces beneficial trade , and uses the imported workers, renters, and consumers to grow Wall Street and the economy.
The migrant inflow has successfully forced down Americans’ wages and also boosted rents and housing prices . The inflow has also pushed many native-born Americans out of careers in a wide variety of business sectors and contributed to the rising death rate of poor Americans.
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The lethal policy also sucks jobs and wealth from heartland states by subsidizing coastal investors with a flood of low-wage workers, high-occupancy renters, and government-aided consumers.
The population inflow also reduces the political clout of native-born Americans, because it allows elites to divorce themselves from the needs and interests of ordinary Americans.
CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS
Victor Davis Hanson: Biden is the most dangerously radical President in US history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdkca09EHRI&t=772s
PROFILE OF A SOCIOPATH GAMER LAWYER:
JOE BIDEN is known as a serial liar , a "public servant" who has somehow managed to accrue tremendous wealth , a race-baiting opportunist, a Catholic-in-name-only , and a bought-and-paid-for politician in bed with criminal cartels and foreign foes . In another era, Joe Biden would have been run out of his country much the same way Benedict Arnold was two and a half centuries ago; in an era when integrity, honor, fortitude, fidelity, and grit have been jettisoned for immorality, unscrupulousness, weakness, betrayal, and craven pliability, however, he is elevated to king sleazeball in a city drowning in sleaze. JB SHURK
SAVE AMERICA FROM JOE BIDEN!!!
WH Press Secretary on Whether Biden Would Use Military Against Mexican Cartels: ‘I’m Just Not Going to Get into the Military and How It’s Being Used’
National Guard agents monitor the banks of the Rio Grande on the border between El Paso, Texas state, United States, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on December 28, 2022. (Photo by HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - The White House refused to say Tuesday whether President Biden would consider using the U.S. military to disrupt cartel operations in Mexico.
JEAN-PIERRE: Well, let’s be very clear. Let me take on the drug part here because — since you brought this up. Because of the work that this president has done, because of what we’ve done specifically on fentanyl at the border, it’s at historic lows — historic levels that we have been able to record a number of personnel working to secure the border because of what we’ve been able to do, seizing that fentanyl.
Murders of Americans in Mexico Fuel Calls for US to Treat Cartels as Terrorist Targets
A convoy of Mexican National Guard and military vehicles transfer two Americans who survived a kidnapping ordeal to a border crossing between the Mexican city of Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas on Tuesday. Two Americans seized with them were killed. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) – The murders of two kidnapped American citizens in Mexico are fueling calls in Congress for the U.S. government to designate cartels as terrorist organizations, paving the way for potential U.S. military action against them.
The two victims were among four Americans seized on Friday in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. The other two survived the ordeal and were handed over to U.S. authorities at a border crossing bridge on Tuesday morning.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who has introduced two pieces of legislation since November targeting the Mexican cartels, tweeted that despite the murders, “we still haven’t declared the cartels a military target.”
“It’s time we authorize military force against them,” he said. “Are you listening, [Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador]? We would love for you to be a partner. Help us help you.”
In January, Crenshaw and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a resolution to create an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to target Mexican cartels facilitating the fentanyl crisis.
Waltz told “Fox & Friends First” on Tuesday that the cartels “have declared war on the United States.”
“They control our border. They are killing tens of thousands of American citizens. And we need to deploy every asset that we have – not just law-enforcement, but also military and intelligence – to dismantle them, to disrupt them, and to take them out.”
Waltz said he wasn’t arguing for U.S. military boots on the ground in Mexico.
“I’m talking about cyber, intelligence, drones, targeting. We begin disrupting their money, their supply chains, and targeting their leadership.”
“We cannot accept a narcostate that is completely ungoverned on our border that’s preying on American citizens,” he said. “These groups are more like ISIS than they are the mafia.”
“We need to be thinking about it differently. Just as al-Qaeda killed 3,000 Americans with their planes these cartels are killing 80,000 Americans a year with poison.”
Waltz was referring to annual deaths attributed to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid manufactured by the cartels using precursor chemicals from China.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News on Monday that he planned to introduce legislation “to make certain Mexican drug cartels ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ under U.S. law and set the stage to use military force if necessary, to protect America from being poisoned by things coming out of Mexico.”
“I would tell the Mexican government if you don’t clean up your act, we’re going to clean it up for you,” he said.
‘I nterventionism’
When Crenshaw and Waltz introduced their AUMF legislation in January, Crenshaw said it was time to start treating the cartels “like ISIS – because that is who they are.”
Waltz said an AUMF would give the president “sophisticated military cyber, intelligence, and surveillance resources to disrupt cartel operations that are endangering Americans.”
Mexican Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Tamaulipas State Governor Americo Villarreal, and Secretary of the Navy Jose Rafael Ojeda hold a press conference in the border city of Matamoros on Tuesday, following the deaths of two of four Americans kidnapped in the cartel-dominated state. (Photo by Alfredo Estrella / AFP via Getty Images)
The legislation specifically named nine Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels which reportedly account for most of the fentanyl being pushed across the border.
Another of those named, the Gulf cartel, is the dominant group in Tamaulipas state, where the Americans were kidnapped and killed. (Tamaulipas is one of six Mexican states classified by the State Department as a “do not travel” area, due to crime and kidnapping.)
López Obrador has objected to the AUMF legislation and accused the two lawmakers, both combat veterans, of wanting to invade his country. (Crenshaw is a former U.S. Navy SEAL, Waltz a former U.S. Army Green Beret.)
He said Crenshaw and Waltz “want to use military force to intervene in the public life of our country, to invade it under the pretext of fighting terrorist drug traffickers. We must reject these claims of interventionism.”
Reacting to the Mexican president’s criticism, Crenshaw said in a series of tweets earlier this week he was glad López Obrador was “finally taking notice,” and asked him, “how would you feel if an American gang was poisoning 70,000 Mexicans every year with fentanyl?”
“All we want is to finally take on the powerful criminal elements that terrorize the Mexican people, pay off and threaten Mexican politicians, and poison Americans,” he said. “You’re against that, Mr. President? Who do you represent? The cartels or the people?”
Asked on Tuesday about calls for terror designation for the cartels, State Department spokesman Ned Price said designations have already been made “consistent with the authorities that we as a government have” – alluding to sanctions under a 2021 executive order targeting the global illicit drug trade
“But we are always going to look at every tool that is, by law or any other authority available to us, to attempt to work with our Mexican partners to crack down on what is a threat to Mexicans and to Americans alike,” he said.
Asked if the administration was then open to terrorist designations, Price replied, “We have designated these groups as appropriate. We are always going to continue to do what is most effective and what is available to us to hold these groups accountable.”
At a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged that Mexican cartels “are responsible for the deaths of Americans.”
“The DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] and the FBI are doing everything possible to dismantle and disrupt and ultimately prosecute the leaders of the cartels and the entire networks that they depend on,” he said.
Last November, Crenshaw introduced the Declaring War on the Cartels Act , featuring increased criminal penalties for criminal cartels’ activities and the targeting of their finances, with provision for seized assets to be directed to Customs and Border Protection, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and the DEA.
The measure also provides for sanctions against foreign governments found to have provided resources to cartels, or that “permit, or fail to take adequate measures to prevent, transnational criminal cartel activity within their territory.”
In Matamoros, was it mistaken I.D., or were Americans specially targeted?
In Matamoros, the four kidnapped Americans taken by cartel henchmen were rescued , but horrifically enough, two were murdered, victims in Mexico's vicious cartel war brought on by Joe Biden's open border .
News reports, citing an anonymous U.S. official, say that the four, who were black U.S. citizens from South Carolina, were mistaken by the killers aligned with the Gulf Cartel, for rival Haitian drug dealers.
Now this is possible, but it doesn't seem complete as a theory. It implicitly suggests that the killings never would have happened otherwise.
Reading between the lines, this seems to say:
Don't be in Mexico at the wrong place and the wrong time. Watch the neighborhood you are driving in. Don't get lost.
Don't drive while black in Mexico. They might think you're Haitian.
It was all an unfortunate and unlucky accident, entirely preventable, entirely controllable. Otherwise, all's hunky dory; just take the usual precautions, as Americans are advised. And don't go to any donkey shows.
Maybe. But there are a few details that suggest otherwise. Based on the cartel behavior in this dreadful incident, it remains possible that they were targeted explicitly for being Americans.
Start with three details:
First, the Americans were driving around lost in their white van when they were blocked and then their car smashed from behind by cartel henchmen, a classic capture-them technique. By one report, officials knew that their vehicle with its North Carolina license plates was followed from the moment they entered Mexico. A hail of gunfire followed, and two of the Americans were killed, then all four were taken away by cartel kidnappers.
One Mexican columnist, writing in El Universal, argued that kidnappers don't kill their targets first and seek ransoms later, so it probably was happenstance, perhaps with a political motive.
Carlos Seoane argued this, via Google Translate :
From the moment of his capture, you can see (in the video circulating on social networks) an armed command dragging three African-American men down the street, leaving a trail of blood behind them. These three people are thrown like lumps into the back of a pickup truck where their partner, also a black woman, was already waiting for them.
Question: What kidnapper would gun down three of his four hostages to later try to negotiate his release for ransom?
Perhaps he doesn't remember another well-known kidnapping of Americans, that of Colombia's FARC Marxist narcoterrorists in 2003, who began their extended kidnapping of three Americans after their Cessna aircraft was shot down over the Colombian jungle while on a drug-eradicating mission. In that horror, one American was killed first , execution-style (the Times account, as early reporting, was uncertain about that but yes, it was execution-style), as was one Colombian military national who was with them. The other three were taken away by the narcoguerrillas, for a four-year ordeal in the jungle until their spectacular 2008 rescue with 12 other Colombian hostages by the Colombian army and American Special Forces, described well in their memoir, "Out of Captivity."
Cartels and narcoguerrillas are known allies, learn from one another. They know that killing a couple of hostages first in a kidnapping works wonders at keeping the remainders taken away docile. That's their technique.
Second, it's significant that the cartel henchmen hauled off all four Americans after the assault, instead of left them splattered in the street, as is the practice for rival drug gangs. Why would they haul off the bodies of the dead Americans? Quite likely because they wanted a ransom for their return. The families grieving might very well pay it. South Carolina is not that far from Mexico (and not that they would care), but they could have insisted that the family come to Matamoros and leave them a ransom. They wouldn't have much use for the bodies otherwise. Note that they left the body of a third victim, a 22-year-old Mexican mother, who was a bystander, in a pool of blood behind. She probably wouldn't be much good for a ransom like the rich gringos coming into the country for cosmetic surgery would. This is their inhuman logic.
Third, the four Americans, two alive, two dead (imagine the impact of that on the living Americans) were all bounced from stash house to stash house, in a move to elude capture. That's a classic "express kidnapping" technique, described well in Jonathan Jakubovicz's award-winning film "Secuestro Express" about a horrific express kidnapping ordeal of two young people in Venezuela. The dirtbags who dragged the Americans from stash house to stash house knew exactly how this was done, and had their network of stash houses all ready to go for the heist.
Maybe the Mexican cartel thugs did this spontaneously as they discovered after the attack that their kidnappees weren't Haitian drug dealers (it's unlikely they would have kidnapped often-destitute Haitians anyway for ransom so they likely knew that they were dealing with Americans when they dragged their victims off) but it would have taken some impressive improvising, a shift of organizational mission, done on the fly, to get that done. Perhaps they have that kind of mojo, but the odds for error on this are huge.
It seems at least as likely that the cartel targeted the victims because they were American, because the cartels want to challenge the Mexican government, which is dealing with fallout from multiple directions, from Sen. Lindsey Graham irresponsibly calling for the assembly of an invasion of Mexico force as if the U.S. were somehow "good" at winning wars like this one, to angry Mexican nationals who point out that the Mexican cops rescue kidnapping victims when they want to -- and they ignore the thousands of Mexican kidnapping victims who remain missing.
According to a report that ran in El Universal, through Google Translate:
Matamoros, Tamps.— Geovanni Barrios Moreno, from the Tamaulipas Justice Collective, and Delia Quiroa, from Madres Buscadoras 10 de Marzo, applaud the effectiveness of the operation to locate four Americans who were deprived of their liberty in Matamoros, but express their annoyance that the authorities do not do the same job to find the 110,000 disappeared in Mexico, 12,000 of them in this entity.
Both activists say they are surprised because in less than 24 hours authorities from the three levels of government mounted a search operation, security personnel were deployed and the missing Americans were located, something that has never been done by Roberto, Delia's brother. , or by Geovanni, son of Barrios Moreno.
Geovanni Barrios said that on behalf of his son, he will file a criminal complaint against Irving Barrios Mojica, Attorney General of Tamaulipas; Jorge Macías, state commissioner for the search for persons; the prosecutor Elizabeth Almanza, and Lorena Perales, legal advisor for attention to victims, for non-compliance in the investigations.
The lawyer and father of the Reynosa family has been looking for his son for 14 years, who was taken away and to date there are no indications of his whereabouts.
Third, the Matamoros kidnapping got a lot of attention in the states -- from the kind of people who don't read State Department warnings to stay out Mexico. At least some are paying attention to this one -- and staying out according to reports in the Mexican press (reports here suggest otherwise but this is the perception in Mexico), which will be a body blow to the northern Mexican economy. People who lose their livelihoods aren't going to be happy with the government.
That's a lot of trouble for Mexico's government, which is already being challenged by the cartels for dominance and wanted to get this Americans-kidnapped issue over with as soon as possible. Reports state that the Mexicans did it all by themselves without the aid of the FBI, which offered help.
If the cartels targeted the victims because they are Americans, the implication is that they will target them again, trying harder the second time. Black-Americans, who stand out in a crowd in many parts of Mexico, may be particularly vulnerable.
Facts are obviously still emerging from this and some of them may shift the story, but it's indisputable that this incident created a lot of trouble for the Mexican government, and opened the path to lucrative new opportunities for ransom cash, which the cartels will learn from and perfect. What it means is that Mexico is more dangerous than ever, both for Americans and Mexicans, because the cartels are getting very bold now, kidnapping Americans in broad daylight and trying to gaslight that it's all about being in the wrong place and the wrong time, to keep that potential victim stream coming. They're feeling mighty powerful these days, what with all their "success" at collecting migrant fees from the open border as Joe Biden happily admits all migrant comers, and using it to do the violent things they do.
That's Joe Biden's open border in action, a horrific new risk to Americans who dare enter Mexico.
Image: Screen shot from CBS 8 San Diego video, via YouTube
Kidnappings demonstrate yet another consequence of Joe Biden's open borders
The vicious kidnapping of four American tourists by Mexican cartel henchmen during a shootout in the border city of Matamoros demonstrates that yes, the State Department knew what it was talking about when it warned Americans to stay the hell out of Mexico .
According to the Washington Post :
Four U.S. citizens were kidnapped by armed men in Mexico on Friday, officials in both countries said.
The Americans crossed into Matamoros, a city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, from Brownsville, Tex., in a white minivan with North Carolina plates, the FBI said .
The passengers came under fire soon after entering the city. They were then placed into another vehicle and taken away. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the four had “crossed the border to buy medicine in Mexico” when they were caught in a crossfire “between groups.”
The Post has a hard-to-watch video of the Americans being dragged out of their car and shoved into the cartel vehicle.
Somehow that State Department warning didn't make it to the Americans, or they didn't let it sink in. I know several Americans, including family members, who are still going there. As spring break approaches, this incident may drive the point home that maybe the border has become a warzone. Who wants to become the next example of what the State Department was warning about? It's natural for Americans to view the warnings with a grain of salt. Thousands of Americans make regular trips to Mexico -- for medical care, dental care, plastic surgery, bar hops, fishing trips, vacations. They "know" the place, they come and go all the time. They know what to watch out for. They can "handle" it. And what the hey, so many people do manage to come and go without incident, what are the odds of getting unlucky?
It's sad, because the State Departments warning was a warning without a hook, which stood out to me as to its seriousness. State Department warnings can easily be affected by politics or an agenda, or a desire to keep things nice or not nice with a particular country, which normally creates a discount factor for those reading them. There were no such hooks on this warning -- relations weren't in any sort of freefall with Mexico and State knew that there would have been flak from the Mexicans for this warning as spring break approached, but it didn't stop the warning, which was quite stark and undiplomatic. Normally, you see these types of warnings only for the world's hellholes -- Somalia, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, and the like. This warning demonstrated that Mexico's borderlands are now as dangerous for Americans as the world's most dangerous disintegrated states.
That didn't come out of nowhere. That's Joe Biden's open border in action. When the U.S. doesn't want to enforce its own border, Mexico's criminal cartels will enforce its border for it, deciding who comes and who doesn't come. With transnational human smuggling organizations working hand in hand with the cartels to create the current border surge, aided by NGOs and Democrats looking for votes, a lot of money is now rolling through in the Mexican north as five million people make their way across with more on the way -- and cartels are fighting viciously for it.
And with any boomtown dynamic, there's an urge to expand the operation. Kidnappings for ransom are gruesome affairs in Mexico -- I know a Mexican family it happened to -- where a huge bankrupting ransom was paid, the victim was tortured and killed anyway, and the cops stole the ransom money that was found. This has been happening for years in the Mexican north, Mexicans know all about it, and with Biden's open border, it's getting worse. The criminal gangs are getting more vicious. Their activities are now expanding to random Americans in Mexico, non-Mexican-Americans entirely unconnected to cartel activity even through relatives, just as the State Department warned. The current victims are likely in for the nightmare of their lives, particularly with Joe Biden in the White House, anxious to sweep any open border news under the rug. After that, the cartel activity may branch out into U.S. border states hitting random Americans the same way, and like Latin America's elites, we can live behind walled compounds, and drive around in armored cars with no jewelry showing.
This situation is on Joe Biden, the product of his own doing. The White House has remained circumspect and silent about finding a way to get these Americans home, with some officials effectively telling them they are on their own with this one. The House is making noise, though, demanding that as much effort be expended on the missing Americans as was expended on Vladimir Putin to release basketball star Brittney Griner. Good luck with that with non-state actors who are among the world's most vile and evil criminals, entirely comparable to al Qaida or ISIS. Oh sure, Joe may authorize a ransom to be paid and try to hide that, but it will only make the situation worse.
The sooner he shuts down the open border and reestablishes U.S. sovereignty, the sooner this activity will contract. For now, we can only hope that the kidnapped Americans are somehow freed unharmed and the White House, even more than the unsuspecting Americans, learns the lesson.
Image: CBS Mornings video screen shot, via YouTube
THERE IS NO GREATER THREAT TO AMERICA THAN JOE BIDEN AND NARCOMEX!
Report: Two Kidnapped Americans Found Dead in Mexico Mexican authorities search for evidence as they work to locate four Americans who were shot by gunmen and then kidnapped shortly after crossing the border with Brownsville, U.S. Texas, in Matamoros, Mexico March 6, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer
MEXICO CITY (Reuters)—Two of four Americans who went missing on Friday in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas are alive, and two are dead, the state governor said Tuesday on a call with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador during a news conference.
ABC News reported the four people kidnapped were Latavia "Tay" McGee, Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown, and Eric James Williams.
Separately, a Mexican official told Reuters on Tuesday that two men had been found dead. The woman and another man were alive, safe and in the hands of authorities, the official said.
Tamaulipas Governor Americo Villarreal told Lopez Obrador on the call that one of the survivors was injured.
Lopez Obrador said one person was in custody in relation to the kidnapping.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Boyle and Dave Graham; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer)
Gulf Cartel Cell Kills Two Americans, Two More Missing in Mexican Border City Breitbart Texas / Cartel Chronicles 3:29
U.S. and Mexican law enforcement confirm that two of four U.S. citizens abducted in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, were killed by a Gulf Cartel cell. Breitbart Texas has confirmed through local authorities the identity of the crime boss responsible for the case. The fates of the other two Americans remain unclear. Breitbart Texas confirmed that both the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are working with Mexican authorities to locate the missing individuals.
Known in the criminal underworld as “La Kena or Ciclon 19,” Jose Alberto Garcia Vilano is the current Gulf Cartel operational leader in Matamoros. Mexican federal law enforcement sources revealed that La Kena has gunmen running security throughout the city and they would be the ones that shot at the four U.S. citizens. Ultimately, the order to take them would have to be given by La Kena or someone in his inner circle with his approval, the law enforcement source said. Breitbart Texas previously reported on La Kena having been demoted from boss in 2021 , however, he has since recovered. It remains unclear how the pressure over the shooting and kidnapping of U.S. citizens will affect his criminal career.
On Monday afternoon, the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office announced they were carrying out a large-scale operation with U.S. authorities to find the North Carolina residents. By Monday evening, authorities were raiding stash houses.
The case began on Friday afternoon when Latavia “Tay” McGee, Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown, and Eric James Williams crossed from Brownsville, Texas, into Matamoros for medical tourism. During a news conference, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said they were looking for medicines, however, other sources suggest some were seeking cosmetic procedures.
After crossing into Matamoros, the group was chased, shot, and kidnapped . The group’s white minivan bore North Carolina plates. While being chased, the minivan crashed into another vehicle, and that is when the gunmen opened fire. The gunmen struck an innocent female bystander who was getting off a city bus. That woman died at the scene. It remains unclear if the gunmen directly targeted the four U.S. citizens or if this is a case of mistaken identity.
It also remains unclear why Mexican authorities did not respond to the scene until after the cartel gunmen had left with the victims.
Most news outlets in Mexico only reported on the death of the innocent bystander until after the U.S. Embassy released a statement confirming the kidnapping.
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 .
GRAPHIC: FBI Confirms Four U.S. Citizens Shot, Kidnapped in Mexican Border City Breitbart Texas / Cartel Chronicles 1:46
The FBI has confirmed that cartel gunmen shot and kidnapped four U.S. citizens in the border city of Matamoros on Friday. Mexican authorities are minimizing the case by claiming that an innocent bystander was the only victim of the shooting.
The shooting took place on Friday afternoon . Initial information indicated two clashes between gunmen in Matamoros. A video leaked on social media on the day of the shootout showed the moment when Gulf Cartel gunmen appear to take a kidnapped woman and three men who appeared to be deceased.
The FBI later revealed in a statement the victims are U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico in a white minivan with North Carolina plates.
“Shortly after crossing into Mexico, unidentified gunmen fired upon the passengers in the vehicle,” an FBI statement revealed. “All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men.”
The U.S. is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the location of the victims and the arrests of the responsible gunmen.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the Tamaulipas government confirmed the death of an innocent bystander who was getting off a city bus — but made no mention of the Americans. Officials also shut down the city’s schools for the rest of the day in expectation of further violence.
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 .
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