Breitbart by Neil Munro 25 Jul 2023
A top official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has admitted the federal government’s catch-and-release policies are helping the cartels grow rich by ushering more of their migrant clients into American jobs.
The admissions came from Blas Nunez-Neto, who is Alejandro Mayorkas’ deputy for border and immigration policy at DHS:
We see migrants now routinely paying smuggling organizations vast sums of money — often more than $10,000 to $15,000 — to facilitate their journey to the border. This is so lucrative [for the cartels], in fact, that we are now seeing the drug cartels increasingly becoming a key player in not just collecting taxes for people who transit through their territory [in Northern Mexico] — which is what we saw historically — but actually moving people and becoming deeply involved in human smuggling, not just in Mexico, but throughout the region, including, you know, in [South America’s] Colombia and Darien [Gap] region.
The cartels’ expanding business is built on their ability to deliver U.S. jobs to the clients, Nunez-Neto admitted:
Why would someone pay that much money to come to the border? And I think the simple answer is that … once they’re in the immigration court system and they have filed the requisite [asylum] paperwork, they are eligible for Employment Authorization — which is obviously something that we support — but that means that they have years to live in the U.S. and go through the [asylum] process and earn money and support their family members back home during that process … I think we are seeing the [asylum] court system essentially become a proxy legal pathway for people to come into the United States and work while they’re here.
The DHS’s creation of a huge backlog of asylum claims also incentivizes further migration, Nunez-Neto acknowledged. “It is clear that the length of time is now taking to get through the immigration court process has become a significant pull factor [emphasis added] that is driving migration throughout the region,” he said, adding:
I think we are seeing the court system, essentially become a proxy legal pathway for people to come into the United States and work while they’re here … and it’s leading to these huge backlogs that we are seeing in the courts as well.
His comments echo a critical June 30 report by the acting ombudsman at the DHS agency responsible for processing migration claims, which said that the agency’s “growing humanitarian workload” has ensured:
processing times [for asylum claims by arrriving migrants] are likely now approaching a decade as backlogs in that humanitarian program now stand at 842,000 and are projected to reach historical records of over 1 million by the end of calendar year 2024.
More:
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/07/25/dhs-deputy-bidens-catch-and-release-grows-cartels-wealth-and-reach/
