Criminal organizations reportedly made up to $14 million a day in February by trafficking women, children, and families across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Trafficking is a multibillion-dollar industry,” former Tucson Border Patrol chief Roy Villareal told Fox News. “A lot of these vulnerable populations use their life savings. Some are essentially indentured servants, and they’re working off this debt for a long period of time. In other cases, some of these migrants are asked to transport narcotics or some form of crime to work off a different part of their debt.”
Traffickers pulled in a total of $411.5 million in February taking people from Mexico and Central America to the U.S. border, according to estimates from Customs and Border Protection. The sum averages out to $14.7 million for each day in February.
Fees to smuggle people across the border reportedly range from $5,000 to as much as $9,000 for one adult.
WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO CALL MIGRANT SURGE AT BORDER A ‘DISASTER’ BUT DEPLOYS FEMA TO HELP
U.S. taxpayers pay roughly $5 million a day to pay for the government to handle the influx of people at the border, according to 2019 figures compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Biden administration also recently signed an $86 million contract with a nonprofit organization to house migrants in hotel rooms as officials grapple with the present influx.
The organization, Endeavors, confirmed to the Washington Examiner Sunday that the Department of Homeland Security “has contracted with Endeavors to provide critical services to migrant families.” The contract will reportedly last six months, and funds will be used to house 1,200 migrants.
The Biden administration has so far denied a crisis is occurring at the border, despite local leaders decrying the White House’s policies, demanding more transparency, and activating forces such as the National Guard to cope with the surge.
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More than 100,000 migrants were encountered at the border in February, and agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas are encountering 1,500 migrants a day.
“The Biden Administration has been an abject failure when it comes to ensuring the safety of unaccompanied minors who cross our border,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Fox News. “President Biden’s refusal to address the border crisis is not only enabling criminal actors like human traffickers and smugglers, but it is exposing innocent unaccompanied children to illness and potentially unsafe living conditions.”
