While the current White House administration continues to bumble and spew fairytales about a “secure border,” Customs and Border Patrol agents with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are continuously disproving the falsehoods paraded by politicians.
According to the US Border Patrol’s weekly report, two federal agents were assaulted (more on that in a moment) during encounters with illegal immigrants. There were 31,143 apprehensions and 11,433 “gotaways.” Per recent Border Patrol stats, 27 removal flights were also undertaken.
One may wonder whether DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas considers encounters with eight sex offenders, four gang members, and one convicted murderer indications of a “secure border.” That’s just this week alone.
Confiscated contraband continues to be significant, too! The following is the tally of a mere few days whereby border agents aggregated dope and weapons from illegal border crossers doing the mule work of cartels:
- 721 lbs. Meth
- 36.7 lbs. Cocaine
- 13 lbs. Fentanyl
- 5 lbs. Heroin
- 3 Firearms
Cart of Cartel Money
Once again, Border Patrol agents came across a daunting amount of dirty money and filled a large shopping cart with bundles of currency, all packed in DHS-labeled evidence bags and headed for impound protocols.
“Bulk currency smuggling is a tactic used by criminal enterprises to move illicit proceeds across our borders. In January, we saw a 181% increase in currency seizures compared to a year ago,” explained a Border Patrol agent.
(Photo courtesy of the US Border Patrol.)
Generally, when currency is confiscated, the law enforcement procedure is for it to be photographed right where/how it is found. Thereafter, it is processed by those nifty money-tabulating machines banks use.
If one of those devices is unavailable (affordability issue for many police agencies), the counting process is manually undertaken by a primary investigator with oversight from/verification by a supervisor…whose supervisor conducts another round of counting. All parties involved in the accounting phases sign the impound paperwork attesting to the evidentiary content and its requisite chain of custody.
Think anyone would come forward and lay claim to that currency? Not likely. It is more likely that the large sum is a drop in the bucket for cartel drug lords making money hand over fist, the way transnational criminal organizations enterprise, materially writing it off as “the cost of doing business.”
These drug kingpins pushing junk across national boundaries is a sure sign of a nonsecure border rendered vulnerable by a delusional political administration engaged in denial of what is nothing shy of an in-your-face crisis in many ways. Narcotics pushers, sex traffickers, human smuggling operators, and plain ole breaching the boundary to reside in America are all static norms, increasingly so.
This is nothing new to those who know first-hand the stark reality and utter truth about the daily hemorrhage at the nation’s southern border, namely US Customs and Border Patrol agents.
This week, federal agents working the San Diego Sector border portal came upon a suspicious automobile and its occupants, with law enforcement attention magnetized by nervous behaviors and/or automobile components seemingly tampered with. Certainly, a drug-sniffing police canine providing silent cues that the car likely has narcotics on board defaults to immediate culling from the general line of vehicles being scrutinized by cops.
Pulling it from the line of cars awaiting vetting and passage into the US, law enforcement officers located packaged drugs stuffed in the auto’s tires:
(Photo courtesy of the US Border Patrol.)
A Border Patrol spokesperson stated: “San Diego Sector Agents & local LEO partners arrested 3 and seized 232 lbs. of Fentanyl worth over $3 million. This amount of Fentanyl had the potential to kill over 50 million people. We continue to take the fight to the cartels and narcotics smugglers!”
Concealing dope in car tires is not a novel ploy but cartels employ all manner of methods, old and new, to get their products across the border and onto American soil, reaping monetary riches.
Here is another one from February 23, 2023, when Border agents culled a car from the line of autos seeking entry, its fuel tank/undercarriage apparently used to haul bags upon bags of fentanyl:
(Photo courtesy of the US Border Patrol.)
“Our checkpoints are vital in the defense against criminal organizations attempting to exploit human and narcotic smuggling,” said a US Border Patrol bulletin. No argument out of me.
As always, our federal law enforcement canines play a huge role in rounding up the junk concealed in motor vehicles.
(Photo courtesy of the US Border Patrol.)
On February 22, 2023, Customs and Border Patrol agents “seized 692 lbs. of Meth worth $830,000 after a K9 alert yesterday. Excellent coordination and communication between San Diego and El Centro Sectors to interdict these traffickers. We have seized over 6,000 lbs. of Meth in the past 4 months.”
(Photo courtesy of the US Border Patrol.)
Duffels bloated with plastic bags chock-full-of narcotics were stacked in the rear of a family van destined for America. Fair to say the would-be vacation didn’t go so well, thanks to diligent federal agents and their drug-detecting dogs.
Would love to be a fly on the wall watching and listening to how this massive drug bust went down, to observe the faces of the people who know what they are hauling, for whom (cartels), and the eventual handcuffs click-clicking in place.
We close with kudos to the courageous federal agents who try feverishly to hold the line, with whatever available resources dwarfed by unrelenting humongous surges of illegal immigrants and cartel associates whose illicit activities span way too much terrain and bring violence. (Graphic depiction ahead.)
(Photo courtesy of the US Border Patrol.)
On February 15, 2023, the Border Patrol reported “over 64,000 encounters” in the preceding two weeks, adding, the “more significant number is the 162 assaults on Border Patrol agents in FY2023. The amount of combative encounters has become a problem.”
With combative encounters increasing, the border is clearly less than secure, no matter what DHS Secretary Mayorkas contrarily claims under oath, before Congress.
Impeachment
As published by Washington Examiner reporter Anna Giaritelli, “A House Republican intent on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas laid out a list of charges that could be filed against the Cabinet official for his dereliction of duty managing the border.”
Ms. Giaritelli added, “At the federal level, [Rep.] Clay Higgins said Mayorkas should be charged for breaking 18 U.S. Code 1001 for ‘knowingly and willfully [having] lied to this body again and again and again about our border’ and for “violating Section 242 of Title 18 of U.S. law for having ‘deprived Americans of their very life.’”
On the state-level, The Political Insider published some significant investigatory findings of a law firm commissioned by the Arizona Senate.
“A number of high-profile Arizona politicians and officials have been accused of receiving bribes from the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, but at the top of the list is new Governor Katie Hobbs, wrote Remso Martinez.
He added: “The California-based Harris/Thaler Law Corporation has evidence that connects Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Runbeck Election Services, and a disturbing number of mayors, judges, city council members, and county supervisors of receiving bribes from the notorious drug cartel.” Sounds like local-level politicos are betraying Border Patrol personnel, its mission, and American citizens.
Desperate people do desperate things, and law enforcement officers on the front lines bear the brunt and have duty boots to the fire, as always. We back them wholeheartedly.