Undocumented immigrants and drug cartels are putting increasing pressure on the nation's southern border. | Wikimedia Commons
Undocumented immigrants and drug cartels are putting increasing pressure on the nation's southern border. | Wikimedia Commons
As the crisis at the southern border of undocumented immigrants coming into the U.S. continues to worsen, critics argue the harm being done extends to innocent bystanders.
Ranchers, Border Patrol and migrant families are all falling victim to the violence of some immigrants and criminal cartels that are creating more chaos through violence and property destruction, according to one policy group.
"Criminal cartels have been empowered by the Biden administration to extort, brutalize and even murder migrant families on their journeys to the southern U.S. border," said a Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) release. "TPPF’s Ken Oliver accompanied members of Congress to the border last month. They saw evidence of the sophistication of the criminal cartels that find migrants to be even more lucrative – and less dangerous – than drugs, and listened to the heartbroken landowners on the border who often find the weak, the injured, the raped and the murdered along the trails leading north."
A video shot by the TPPF has profiles of law enforcement officials, ranchers and citizens facing the dangers of human trafficking and smugglers along the border as "coyotes" use migrants as distractions by throwing them into the Rio Grande.
"The coyotes are fast – it takes just seconds to cross the Rio Grande and dump their victims on the other side," the foundation said in its release. "If Border Patrol gets too close, they can always throw a woman or a child into the river – forcing officers to initiate a rescue instead of an arrest."
Many undocumented immigrants and members of the cartels are also costing ranchers thousands of dollars, NPR reports. Whit Jones III, a South Texas rancher who runs a ranch that has been in his family for 130 years, told NPR he has spent nearly $30,000 since January repairing fences that have been torn down by immigrants crossing into the U.S.
"They drive as far as they can on the property and tearing down fences as they drive," Jones said. "The car stops and everybody bails out of the car. So that's why they call it a bailout."
Jones said he has seen a significant increase in illegal immigration and crime such as smuggling and human trafficking right after the Biden administration rolled back former President Donald Trump's controversial border policies.
According to the Lone Star Standard, the number of unaccompanied, undocumented children and single adults crossing into the United States is almost at record-breaking numbers and has topped the numbers of the previous three years.
"The number of unaccompanied undocumented children was 29,729 in fiscal year 2021 through February, compared with 33,239 for the entire fiscal year 2020. Single adults who crossed the border have numbered 326,705 for fiscal year 2021, almost surpassing the entire previous year when 353,168 single adults were apprehended," the Lone Star Standard reports.
South Texas has had to close highways and issue public safety notices about high-speed chases while police and Border Patrol officers try to combat the and growing border crisis, NPR reports.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation said in the release that this crisis has to be addressed, not only for the safety of Americans, but for the safety of migrants coming into the country legally. TPPF said to do this, the catch-and-release for undocumented immigrants claiming asylum must be stopped, because "lives depend upon this."
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