A Shameful Ruling Class that Shamelessly Shames Good Americans
By J.B. Shurk
When is a government so corrupt as to render it illegitimate? There are many telltale signs: unconstitutional assertions of authority, widespread criminality, currency debasement, coercive intimidation, selective prosecution, purposeful failure to protect its own borders, and rampant censorship — to name just a few.
Threat of Terror Attack Increases ‘Almost Exponentially’ with Each Passing Day of Biden’s Border Policy, AZ Rep. Warns
The Biden Administration’s open-border policy is putting the U.S. at an ever-increasing risk of being hit with a terrorist attack, Congressman Andy Biggs (R-AZ) warned Thursday.
In an interview with Fox & Friends First, the Arizona congressman responded to Pres. Joe Biden’s claim that Republicans are to blame for the number of immigrants flooding into the U.S. Instead of taking responsibility for the single-day record of more than twelve thousand migrant encounters on Tuesday, Biden accused Republicans of having an “extreme partisan border policy.”
Biden also blamed what he vaguely called a broken immigration “system” – apparently voicing frustration that his administration hasn’t been able to process, legalize, and grant citizenship to aliens as fast as he’d like to do so.
“It’s not the Republicans who have opened the border,” Rep. Biggs said in response, explaining how one town in his state was overwhelmed by dangerous border-crossers earlier this week:
“Look, there was not, in that group of a thousand in Lukeville, Arizona two days ago, there was not a single female, there was not a single child. Every one of that thousand-plus persons was 18-35 year-old men – we call that ‘military age’ – they have made this country very dangerous.
“We know there was probably another five thousand people who came that day, that didn’t turn themselves in.”
Asked how much the threat of a terror attack increases each day the Biden Administration continues to allow a record a record number of border encounters, Rep. Biggs issued a dire warning, explaining that many migrants are coming from countries with ties to terrorist organizations:
“It increases almost exponentially.
“In the briefings that I’ve had recently, they’ve acknowledged that Venezuela, for instance, has ties with Hezbollah and Hamas. And we have people coming up from Venezuela daily that are actually submitting themselves.”
The threat is even worse than the administration’s counts suggest, Biggs explained:
“But, we don’t know how many people are getting away every day. We do know that, in the Biden Administration, there’s over two million unknowns that have come into the country.
“That means we don’t know their country of origin, we don’t know where they’re going into this country. And, we don’t know what their intentions are in this country.”
It’s also concerning that the migrants entering the U.S. are already dressed for battle, Biggs said:
“But you can be assured that, since they’re through dressing in camo and wearing carpet shoes and have backpacks, they’re either bringing drugs, they’re with the cartels – and some of them are actually probably related to terrorist activity and are hoping to create a terrorist event within this country.”
Faced With Record Illegal Immigration, the White House Wants To Expedite Border Crossings
Department of Homeland Security may send agents to screen migrants in Mexico, documents show
As illegal border crossings reach record highs, the Biden administration is considering a novel idea: make it even easier for migrants to enter the country.
A senior official familiar with the plan told the Washington Free Beacon that the Department of Homeland Security wants to dispatch Customs and Border Protection agents to areas of Mexico that have seen large influxes of migrants. There, documents obtained by the Free Beacon show, law enforcement would begin the screening process for migrants and expedite their final journey across the southern border.
Such a program is virtually unprecedented, and represents an escalation of what critics call the Biden administration’s facilitation of illegal immigration.
"What the Department of Homeland Security wants to do is send customs officers to Mexico so we can pre-clear surges of migrants ostensibly in hopes they stop crossing illegally," the DHS official told the Free Beacon. "They would be doing background vetting so migrants can be waved through."
But the plan could put further strain on Border Patrol, which already faces a staffing shortage ahead of an expected winter surge. Staff who spoke with the Free Beacon said miles of the southern border have gone unguarded because agents have been relegated to processing migrants.
President Joe Biden has overseen the largest immigration crisis in U.S. history, with law enforcement recording more than five million illegal crossings on the southern border since he took office. Blue state governors say the record number of migrants coming to their cities is straining their welfare systems, and cities including New York and Chicago are considering budget cuts to offset the cost of housing and feeding migrants.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment.
There is ample evidence the Biden administration is well aware of large groups of migrants heading to the United States well before they reach the southern border. Since September, the Free Beacon reported, senior Department of Homeland Security officials have been in communication with Mexican immigration authorities over large caravans traveling to the United States but have seemingly done little to prepare.
Biden has implemented measures he says will create a more orderly immigration system, such as a program that would allow migrants to apply for asylum remotely. Biden claimed the program would "make things better but will not fix the border problem completely," while Republicans say it is illegal.
The program has not led to a decrease in border crossings. The 2023 fiscal year, which ended in October, saw 2.47 million migrant encounters on the southern border—the most in U.S. history.
The proposal to pre-screen migrants comes as the Senate negotiates a border security plan, which Democrats have bundled with a plan to provide military aid for Ukraine and Israel. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has insisted that any Ukraine aid bill must include the Secure the Border Act, which would cap the number of people who can claim asylum, as well as fund the construction of a border wall.
As Biden has faced bipartisan criticism over his handling of the southern border, he has attempted to place blame on Republicans. His reelection campaign called former president Donald Trump, who leads the Republican field for the 2024 presidential nomination, "extreme" and "racist" on the issue.
A Biden spokesman told Politico last month that another Trump term would bring "mass detention camps [and] attempts to deny children born here citizenship."
That message has not appeared to resonate with voters. An NBC News poll released earlier this month found Republicans had an 18-point lead over Democrats on the issue of immigration.
Drug lords go on killing spree to hunt down corrupt officers who stole shipment in Mexico's Tijuana
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A recent killing spree in the Mexican border city of Tijuana could have been lifted from a TV script: enraged drug lords hunting down corrupt police officers who stole a drug shipment.
Two of the officers suspected of the theft have been killed, prosecutors say. But so have at least three other officers, according to the city's former police chief, suggesting the cartel believed to have owned the drugs may have launched a generalized retribution.
It is the latest blow for Tijuana which has the most homicides of any city in Mexico, with about double the number of the place that comes second — the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Tijuana, situated in the border state of Baja California and with a population of over 2.1 million, has for several years seen around 2,000 murders annually. By comparison, Houston, Texas, which has about the same population, saw 435 killings in 2022.
According to prosecutors, in mid-November, a half-dozen local and state police officers in Tijuana allegedly hatched a plot to steal a large shipment of drugs from a warehouse where traffickers were storing it.
Video emerged last week of the officers' pickup truck pulling out of the building with big, plastic-wrapped bales of cocaine filling the truck bed.
State Prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade confirmed this week that three state detectives were under investigation in the case, along with a similar number of Tijuana municipal police.
Alberto Capella, the former head of Tijuana's police force from 2007 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2013, told The Associated Press that the cache of drugs appeared to have belonged to the Sinaloa cartel, specifically the wing controlled by drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, probably the most powerful gang in town.
Apparently, the cartel knew almost immediately who had pulled off the heist.
On Nov. 18, just hours after the theft, gunmen sprayed the federal prosecutors’ office in Tijuana with at least 30 rounds, pockmarking the building’s façade. Within an hour, one of the municipal police officers allegedly involved in the heist was gunned down on a street in Tijuana.
On Nov. 24, gunmen targeted the state prosecutors’ office with a barrage of gunfire; nobody was injured.
On Nov. 27, a state detective under investigation for the theft was gunned down in his car while filling it with gas at a station in Tijuana. It seemed the officer saw the attack coming, and was able to start his car and advance a few feet before hitting a column and collapsing dead at the wheel. The attackers fled on a motorcycle.
An employee of the state prosecutors' office — who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk publicly about the case — confirmed this week that two of the officers under investigation in the scandal had been shot and killed in broad daylight on the city’s streets, in apparent gangland revenge.
The employee said the second officer declined an offer for a spot in the state witness protection program in return for testifying in the case.
Capella, the former police chief, said at least three other police officers have been killed since the heist, suggesting the cartel may have launched a generalized retribution for the theft.
Tijuana is no stranger to violence or corruption.
When he took over the police department, Capella recalls, he had to fire about a quarter of the force's officers and he survived an assassination attempt. But police stealing a cartel's whole drug shipment is a new low.
“This is very worrisome,” Capella said. “Tijuana has never seen anything of this scale and that's saying a lot.”
The roots of Tijuana's current round of violence date back to 2017, when murders practically doubled, rising from 919 in 2016 to 1,782 in 2017. Observers say turf battles between the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, and other groups — like remnants of the old Arellano Felix gang — are largely to blame.
And so pervasive is the violence in Tijuana that anyone, from singers to journalists, can fall victim to the killings. In January 2022, two journalists were shot to death in two separate attacks in one week.
On Nov. 20, the Tijuana city council voted to ban performances of drug ballads known as “narco corridos,” which glorify traffickers.
“If they come to sing other kinds of songs, they are welcome,” said Mayor Montserrat Caballero, threatening those who performed the ballads with fines of up to $57,000.
That followed the cancellation of a concert in October by well-known narco corrido singer Peso Pluma. His organization called off the performance “for everyone's safety” after hand-lettered banners appeared in the city signed by the Jalisco cartel, which may have been angered by songs praising rivals.
“Don't even think about performing on Oct. 14 because that will be your last performance,” according to the banner. “You show up and we will destroy you.”
In June, Caballero, the mayor, announced she had decided to live at an army base for her own safety after receiving threats she didn't specify, but which everyone assumed came from cartels.
Caballero rose to fame in 2022 when she made a direct public appeal to cartels to stop targeting civilians after gangs carjacked and burned at least 15 vehicles throughout the city.
In the broadcast at the time, she said: “Today we are saying to the organized crime groups that are committing these crimes that Tijuana is going to remain open and take care of its citizens.” She then asked “organized crime,” the term used in Mexico for drug cartels, to ”settle their debts with those who didn’t pay what they owe, not with families and hard-working citizens.”
But it is not just government officials or police who are running scared; Tijuana is a hub for everyone from businessmen and tourists to immigrants seeking to reach the United States. The city's persistent violence problem threatens all.
THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A HIGH PRICE CALIFORNIANS HAVE PAID FOR THE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S SURRENDER OF OUR BORDER FOR MORE 'CHEAP' LABOR UNREGISTERED DEM VOTERS!
Mexican government officials are twisting facts in an attempt to downplay the raging cartel violence spreading throughout the border state of Tamaulipas. In the most recent incident, public officials are hiding a large-scale attack on law enforcement by cartel gunmen and the use of explosives by passing it off as a scuffle between drug gangs.
U.S. Coast Guard Intercepted 18,000 Pounds of Cocaine in November
The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) intercepted more than 18,000 pounds of cocaine — worth $239 million — in six separate drug busts in November, officials announced Wednesday.
The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Waesche offloaded “approximately 18,219 pounds of cocaine, with an estimated street value of more than $239 million,” in San Diego, California, the USCG said in a news release.
The offload was cumulative of several “suspected drug smuggling vessel interdictions or events” off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America in November, with the largest find occurring on November 20.
USCG officials reported that they intercepted a “self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) carrying more than 5,500 pounds of cocaine” that day, making it the first SPSS interdiction in the Eastern Pacific since 2020.
The other interceptions occurred on November 7, 15, 16, 23, and 24.
Four of the six drug busts were made by the Waesche, while Cutter Active made the other two.
Capt. Robert Mohr, commanding officer of the Waesche, said:
All four of our interdictions on this patrol are crucial to the Coast Guard’s efforts to keep illicit drugs off the streets, but our last interdiction of a semi-submersible vessel was noteworthy since it was the first semi-submersible interdicted in the Eastern Pacific in over three years.
Capt. Mohr expressed his gratitude to his crew members, saying, “They overcame multiple challenges with collective hard work, ingenuity, and positive attitudes to keep us in pursuit of these cartels and their dangerous drugs.”
“A successful patrol like this one is rewarding and leads to better retention and recruiting efforts because everybody feels a sense of accomplishment,” he added.
The Waesche is one of four “Legend-class national security cutters” homeported in Alameda, California, making it one of the largest active patrol cutter boats of the USCG.
Outfitted with technology for command, communication, surveillance, and more, these types of ships are “afloat operational-level headquarters for complex law enforcement and national security missions involving multiple Coast Guard and partner agency participation,” the press release said.
“The significance of keeping this much cocaine from reaching our shores and streets is, no doubt, life-changing,” said U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath. “Without these 9 tons of cocaine on American streets, fewer people will have access to this toxic poison, and hundreds of millions of dollars will not make it into cartel coffers.”
She went on to thank the crew of the Waesche and the entire USCG “for protecting our nation from the devastation, violence, and addiction that cocaine brings to our communities.”
Mexican President Wrongly Claimed Mass Murder Victims Were Buying Drugs
A state attorney general in Mexico revealed that the five medical students kidnapped and murdered by cartel gunmen were not involved in the drug trade and were simply spending time in a water park. The information contradicts previous claims by Mexico’s president, who tried to divert attention from the mass killing by claiming the victims were trying to buy drugs.
On Friday, Guanajuato Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre revealed the mass killing was not tied to the street distribution of drugs and that the victims were “good people.”
The public official said that Mexico’s president was mistaken in claiming that the five victims were trying to buy drugs, adding that his staff was in charge of the investigation and knew firsthand the details. He said President Lopez Obrador read off the wrong information from notecards given to him by his staff.
Zamarripa said that the students were having fun at a local waterpark when a group of men took them. Later that evening, their bodies were discovered not far from the university campus.
Earlier this week, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had tried to dismiss the case by claiming that the victims were trying to buy drugs.
“It was because of the consumption they went to buy from someone selling drugs in a turf belonging to another group,” Lopes Obrador said this week, claiming that there wasn’t a problem of drug consumption in other states, and that is what they wanted to avoid.
During his term, Lopez Obrador has been harshly criticized for his refusal to fight drug cartels in a strategy known as hugs, not bullets (abrazos no balazos).
The case began on Sunday in the city of Celaya, Guanajuato, when authorities found a vehicle with five bodies inside. The victims all showed “signs of violence” and had been shot execution style.
The bodies were later determined to be five medical students from a local university who had been spending time at a local waterpark nearby. University officials have since issued various statements expressing their outrage and claiming that the students were not tied to any illegal activities. According to Mexico’s El Universal, during the week, hundreds of students have taken to the streets to peacefully protest the mass killing and demand answers in the latest of several mass killings of innocent students in recent years.
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.
EXCLUSIVE, GRAPHIC: Cartel Gunmen Killed Two Border State Cops in Mexico While Targeting Corrupt Official
The recent killing of two border state police officers is directly linked to an attempt to murder a corrupt law enforcement official who has been working for a rival cartel. Cartel gunmen previously called out that official on cartel banners, Breitbart Texas reported at the time.
A group of gunmen suspected of working for the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas shot and killed Hector Osvaldo Juarez Juarez and Antonio de Jesus GarcÃa Vargas. The targeted killing took place in the western part of Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas. Both men were 35 years old, and were tactical police officers in Tamaulipas.
The two officers were filling up their vehicle at a gas station when the gunmen surprised them with AK-47s and fled before additional police forces could respond.
The two officers had been assigned as a security detail to the state police coordinator for Ciudad Mante Alfredo Escobedo Marin, who is believed to have been the intended target.
Breitbart Texas first reported on Escobedo Marin in 2021, when several cartel banners surfaced where the CDN-Los Zetas accused him of working with the Gulf Cartel. In the allegations at the time, the cartel claimed that Escobedo Marin had arrested cartel gunmen and turned them over to the Gulf Cartel.
After being exposed as a corrupt lawman, Escobedo Marin got a judge to issue an injunction to keep the Tamaulipas government from firing him. Due to the court order, authorities have since placed the public official under armed security.
The CDN-Los Zetas once controlled Ciudad Mante, but have since lost control of the city. As Breitbart Texas reported, the Gulf Cartel has carried out several extortion operations in Ciudad Mante while government officials benefited.
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.
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