The news is full of the “humanitarian crisis” taking place on the U.S. southern border. We hear of the “unaccompanied children” who have been tragically released into the nation without parental oversight. It paints a horrifying picture that has affected compassionate, caring Americans, bringing many to tears and wanting to help. That’s what Americans do. We care. We cry. We rush to help.
What many, blinded by their compassion, are not seeing is the reality of what this modern day version of Castro’s infamous Muriel Boat Lift will bring to U.S. cites in coming months and years. That’s because only about 20 percent of those now rushing across the border are actually innocent children. Many more are dangerous felons, members of murderous gangs, and some are even Middle Eastern terrorists avoiding the TSA.
For those who remember history, my reference to the Muriel Boat Lift is not far off base. Castro decided to empty his prisons and make those felons America’s problem by putting them in boats and sending them to Miami. Again, Americans were overwhelmed with compassion for these “refuges.” Soon, crime in the city and surrounding area began to skyrocket. Thefts, rapes, drug sales and use all rose dramatically as Castro’s joke on America succeeded in spades.
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Back to the U.S./Mexican border today, reports are now indicating that a great many of those “children” crossing the border are actually members of murderous crime gangs such as MS-13. Several have been found to be guilty of murder, extortion, and money laundering back in their home countries. Inside the rescue centers that are housing the “refugees,” there are reports of fights breaking out between rival gang members. Wait until they join up with their fellow gang members in America’s neighborhoods. American cities are being set up to explode in a crime wave never before experienced in the United States.
Even before this latest invasion of illegals, crimes committed by alien criminals, such as rape, murder, or drug distribution have cost U.S. taxpayers $1.6 billion in prison expenses alone. The figure doesn’t include the cost of lost property, medical bills of the victims, time lost from work to recover, higher insurance costs, etc. Today, illegal aliens make up 29 percent of the U.S. prison population — or 500,000 illegals. Those numbers are about to soar.
Latino gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13) contribute most of the crime from the ranks of the illegals. They originated in El Salvador and today their U.S. leadership still comes from there. They steal cars and use them to run drugs over the border. They terrorize local citizens with violence. They are the chief source of drug sales for the cartels. And they are racists.
MS-13 is the largest and most violent of all gangs in the U.S. today. The FBI reports there are at least 70,000 MS-13 gang members operating between Central America and the United States. They have overtaken the Crips and the Bloods both in size and violence. MS-13, which began its U.S. operations in Los Angeles, has now spread across the country and is prominent on the East Coast. The FBI reports the gang currently operates in 42 states, with the highest concentrations in California, New York, and the District of Columbia.
The gang typically targets high school, and even middle school, students for recruitment. Initiation into the gang typically requires the recruit to commit a brutal attack on either a rival gang member or even upon an unsuspecting civilian. They threaten and terrorize young school students who aren’t part of the gang and control whole school zones. Children are many times reluctant to go to school for fear of the gangs. They are robbed of expensive clothing and money. Sometimes children are forced to join a certain gang because the gang controls that particular school. Then the students become targets of rival gangs, simply because they attend a specific school. No one is safe as long as the gang exists.
In Los Angeles, Mexican gangs declared “ethnic cleansing zones” in specific parts of the city. They kill whites and blacks. In New Jersey, a few years ago, MS-13 gang members killed three college students in execution style. And they flood our communities with dangerous illegal drugs as American children are their targets for addiction.
The fact is, this latest invasion of illegals is not about poor children coming here for a better life. That is a smoke screen. It’s about criminal violence and an effort to destroy U.S. border security. In part, it’s a power play by the violent Mexican drug cartels. And it’s about money. The cartels are selling passage into the U.S. for big bucks.
The Tucson, Arizona, area is one of the prime crossing points for illegals. The organization for transporting illegals is almost a precision military operation. On the Mexican side of the border is a landing strip where planes fly in on a regular basis with their cargo — some of it human, some drugs. It’s all the same to those providing the transportation.
The planes land and the cargo is loaded onto buses with the windows whited out. Young girls are prepared for the trip by taking birth control, for they know what awaits them on the trip across the border from their “travel assistants” — rape. It’s just part of the price for crossing the border into the promised land of America.
The buses drive to a specific location on the border. Here the cargo is unloaded and the process of walking across the border begins. Each of the human cargo is given information on what to do once they reach the other side, including a phone number of someone to call. The number is not necessarily a local number. It may be a location in Virginia, or Maine or Utah — anywhere in the United States. The person on the other end gives instructions on how to gain transportation to their location where they will be brought into the illegal community in that city.
And so the journey across the border begins. Somewhere in the middle, between Mexico and the United States, is a tree. From the branches of that tree hang women’s panties. It’s called the panty tree. Why? Trophies from the raped women of previous journeys. It’s just the cost of doing business with the “Coyotes,” the murderous thugs who run the illegal immigrant trade. They don’t care who lives or dies. These are the ones who will leave illegals locked in trucks without food or water or ventilation. They charge enormous fees — up front. To them the cargo is all the same. They carry the drugs with the humans. They make deals with terrorists for the same trip. They rape, maim, and kill. And go back for another load. Business is booming.
Once the cargo is inside the United States, more buses are there to pick them up and transport them to drop off points. Here the phone calls are made for arrangements of more transportation across the nation. And in that highly organized manner, illegal aliens make their way into American cities. Only now, under the current crisis, the cartels are saving money as the U.S. Government is supplying the buses, housing, and food.
The worst offenders are “Sanctuary Cities” where politicians have decided it’s good for the community to encourage illegals to live. In such communities no one can ask for the country of origin, even if a crime as horrible as murder is committed. The sanctuaries permit 20 million illegals, drug smugglers, child sex rings, ID forgery networks, and an assortment of run-of-the-mill criminals to live lawlessly inside the United States. They are provided with income, identification, driver’s licenses, credit, housing, education, and medical care at taxpayer expense.
It’s a $300 billion a year industry. That buys a lot of politicians. Along the border states no one talks about it. And, no surprise, a lot of politicians do nothing to stop it. Our fear and their greed are destroying the American dream.
And contrary to mainstream media reports, not all of the illegals crossing our border are poor Hispanics from Central America. In fact, these “poor” are paying as much as $2,000 or more for the journey. The poor in Central American don’t come by such sums easily. How do they raise it? But there is more. According to the national Association of Former Border Patrol officers (NAFBPO), large groups of Chinese are paying $100,000 each for passage across the border. In addition, says NAFBPO, Hezbolla, a militant Shi’a Islamist group aligned with Hamas, has hooked up with the cartels to smuggle its members inside the United States. And most recently, Russians have also been seen crossing in groups. These are transnational criminals crossing our border to do harm to America.
And there’s one more bit or alarming news that makes the border invasion a much bigger issue. The federal government is moving to lock away more and more land into national monuments under the excuse of environmental protection. But the real winners of such a move are the cartels. According to NAFBPO, 62 percent of the Arizona/Mexico border area is federal land. The Border Patrol does not have unfettered access to those federal lands. But guess who does? Drug cartels. They use those lands, where there is no law enforcement and no human activity, as smuggling corridors, compliments of the U.S. government.
There are now two new federal monuments being considered right in the path of the illegal traffic along the New Mexico/Mexico border. These federally protected environmental set-asides hinder Border Patrol efforts to stop illegals. Worse, nearly 80 percent of forest fires occurring in those protected areas are caused by illegals deliberately setting them as a way to hide their activities. Why are officials of the U.S government taking such actions that directly help these criminals while directly weakening American security? Congress should conduct an immediate investigation to find the answers. Has the illegal money found its way inside the Beltway?
Meanwhile, as Americans are subjected to such misdirected policy, the southern border of the nation is wide open. Even before the current invasion started, 4,000 illegal immigrants per day walked into the nation. An entire industry operates along the border to bring them in. There are safe houses, camps, and transportation systems designed to help them disappear into the countryside. As Time magazine reported, for the illegals, there are “no searches for weapons. No shoe removal. No photo-ID checks.” Such searches are reserved for legal Americans trying to travel around their own country.
The Department of Homeland Security admits that no law-enforcement officials are looking for the vast majority of the eight million to 12 million illegal aliens thought to be in the country. And in the middle of the current invasion the Border Patrol has been told to essentially stand down and let them in. It’s all a “humanitarian” effort, you understand. “Refugees!” Apparently the federal government has more compassion for the criminals invading our nation than it does for legal American citizens who have to deal with the negative impact on our quality of life and national security. It really means politicians don’t have the will to enforce our laws, especially in an election year.
It is politically correct to express compassion for the plight of those who steal into the country under cover of night. It is politically correct to be sensitive to the feelings of those of Middle Eastern decent. It is politically correct to impose black lists, national ID cards, searches of private property without warrants, and strip search little old ladies at airports, under the excuse of fighting terrorism. But it is NOT politically correct to say these things are a danger to our liberties and must be stopped at all costs. No, that would show concern for the plight of American citizens who stand in the path of the coming crime wave that will be perpetrated by the criminals we are now helping to cross our border.
Photo of Central American immigrants riding a freight train toward the U.S.-Mexico border: AP Images
Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence. Go to americanpolicy.org for more information
