New DHS Threat Assessment: Expect a Mass Illegal Migration Crisis Next Year: National security 'threat actors' from outside the Western Hemisphere likely to surge, too
By Todd Bensman
The collaborative intelligence community assessment, written by career analysts, sees an increasing likelihood that a new mass migration wave will come out of the Caribbean and Central and South America, especially Cuba and Haiti, next year. Main push-pull factors: Lifting of pandemic-related border restrictions among Latin American countries and economic distress from the pandemic coupled with a resurgence in the American economy.
Mexican Drug Lord Wanted in Texas Murder Makes FBI’s Top 10
A Mexican drug lord wanted for ordering the assassination of a man in the Dallas suburb of Southlake was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Federal authorities are offering up to $1 million for information leading to the arrest of the man who continues to operate in Mexico and is responsible for violent executions in Nuevo Leon.
The FBI announced the addition of Jose Rodolfo Villarreal Hernandez to the Top 10 Most Wanted fugitives and offers up to $1 million for information leading to his capture.
Known as “El Gato,” Villarreal Hernandez is wanted for the 2013 murder of Gulf Cartel attorney-turned-informant Jesus Guerrero Chapa. Guerrero Chapa was living in Southlake when gunmen murdered him after a surveillance operation. Villarreal had a personal vendetta against Guerrero Chapa, who he blamed for the murder of his father. While federal authorities have arrested and convicted three men in connection with the case, El Gato remains at large.
In 2018, Breitbart Texas published the first known image of El Gato. Once a top commander with Beltran Leyva Cartel, El Gato branched off and established his own organization in the ritzy suburb of San Pedro in the Monterrey metropolitan area. During his exit, Villarreal managed to kill several old associates and bosses to gain operational independence. In addition to drug trafficking, El Gato also oversees money laundering ventures and extortion rackets.
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.
Tony Aranda from Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project contributed to this report
Human Smugglers Dump Small Children on Border Riverbank in Texas
Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents rescued four shivering children left alone on the north bank of the river separating Texas and Mexico. Agents located the children walking on the riverbank after being picked up on video surveillance equipment.
Brownsville Station Border Patrol agents received information about four small children walking alone on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. An agent operating electronic surveillance equipment first noticed the children and passed the info along to agents patrolling the border river, according to information obtained from Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials. Shortly after observing the children, the Remote Video Surveillance System operator witnessed a raft moving across the river to Mexico.
Agents arrived on the scene and found the four young children walking along the levee. Agents said the children were wet and shivering.
The agents quickly placed the four children in a vehicle and turned up the heater. They then transported the abandoned children to the station for processing and medical screening.
Agents report the children were two sets of siblings. They identified the children as Honduran and Salvadoran nationals — ages seven, six, four, and four, officials reported.
Officials said the four children had names and U.S. phone numbers written on their clothing. Agents put the children in dry, warm clothes and turned them over to medical staff for evaluation.
One day earlier, Fort Brown Station Border Patrol agents found a three-year-old girl from Honduras in the care of a Venezuelan woman who had just illegally crossed the border, officials stated. The woman told the agents the child was not hers and that human smugglers instructed her to take the child with her into the United States.
The Venezuelan illegal alien said she had no clue about the child’s identity. “The woman added the only reason she complied with the smugglers’ instructions was she felt it was in the best interest and safety of the child,” officials stated.
Officials found a Honduran birth certificate on the child and a name and phone number on the child’s shirt.
Officials did not report what will be done with the five children.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
U.S. Identifies Mexico’s Former Defense Secretary as Cartel Godfather
U.S. federal prosecutors accuse Mexico’s former secretary of defense and some of his top aides of working with drug traffickers for years. The allegations followed the highly publicized arrest in California by U.S. federal agents and the subsequent court appearance of the former general. Prosecutors unsealed a five-count indictment against him.
Salvador Cienfuegos, a career Mexican Army General who served as Mexico’s secretary of defense under former President Enrique Pena Nieto, was known in the criminal underworld as “El Padrino” or The Godfather. He is charged with being a close ally of a faction of the Beltran Leyva Cartel known as H-2 — named after their late leader Juan Francisco Patron. As Breitbart Texas reported, federal authorities arrested Cienfuegos in California. A U.S. District Judge in New York unsealed the criminal indictment against him and additional information related to the case.
According to documents submitted by prosecutors, Cienfuegos allowed his associates with the Beltran Leyva Cartel (H-2) to operate with impunity in Mexico as they moved ton-quantities of cocaine and other drugs into U.S. cities. That criminal organization operated cells in Nevada, Ohio, Minnesota, North Carolina, and New York. In exchange for cartel bribes, Cienfuegos would keep the Mexican military from carrying out actions against his allies including helping them move into new territories such as Mazatlán, Sinaloa. He also allegedly targeted actions against his rivals. The allegations also claim that the former top military official leaked sensitive U.S. law enforcement information to his allies and introduced top leaders to other corrupt officials.
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.
Migrant Apprehensions at Border Jump 16 Percent in September
The apprehension of migrants who illegally cross the border between ports of entry jumped again. The nearly 55,000 migrants arrested in September marks the fifth-straight month of increased apprehensions. However, apprehensions for the year fell by 53 percent from the previous year’s total.
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 54,771 migrants in September who illegally crossed the border between ports of entry, according to the FY202o year-end Southwest Border Migration Report released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday. This represents an increase of nearly 16 percent from the previous month and a 238 percent increase from the year’s low point in March.
Overall, Border Patrol agents arrested 400,651 migrants during all of FY2020 which ended on September 30. While this is down from the FY2019 apprehension total of 851,508, it still places the arrest numbers in the ballpark of FY15–FY18.
CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said the decrease in numbers from FY19 is due in large part to plans and programs put in place by the Trump Administrations. These programs include the building on 360 miles of new border wall systems and programs put in place with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Before the pandemic, the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP) put in place by the Trump Administration and Mexico’s creation of a National Guard to focus on illegal immigration contributed to apprehension numbers falling from a high of 92,833 in March 2019 to 29,205 in January 2020 — a decrease of nearly 70 percent.
Morgan said the mission of Border Patrol shifted from border security as a law enforcement perspective to a public health perspective. Under Title 42 Coronavirus protection protocols put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 90 percent of migrants apprehended between ports of entry are returned to Mexico or Canada (depending on crossing point) within two hours.
Morgan also said the demographics of the migrants changed once the Catch and Release programs ended. He cited a shift from mostly family units illegally crossing the border (primarily from Norther Triangle countries) to what is now mostly single adults (primarily from Mexico).
Of the more than 400,000 migrants apprehended by Border Patrol in FY20, 317,864 were single adults, the CBP report indicates.
“Single adult males from Mexico accounted for 56 percent of migrants encountered this year, a significant change from FY19, when 64 percent of the encounters were individuals from the Northern Triangle countries,” CBP officials said in a written statement. “Overall, single adults accounted for 77 percent of the total encounters this year, compared to 38 percent last year.”
Morgan said the primary driver of these migrants is the struggling economies of Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries, due in part to the pandemic.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.