Two migrants were reportedly stoned to death on the Mexican side of the southern border Saturday.
According to Border Report, police in Tijuana, Mexico, say the migrants were preparing to illegally cross a border barrier into San Diego when smugglers repeatedly struck them in the head with rocks, killing them. A third migrant was shot and was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
“No one can go through there unless a payment has been made,” Soraya Vazquez, a human rights lawyer based in Tijuana, told Border Report. “The border barrier on the Mexico side has become a domain owned by cartels.”
The cartels control the southern border, according to former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott.
“There’s nothing that crosses the southwest border without working with the cartels,” Scott said on a recent episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
The would-be immigrants are “either directly paying the cartels, or the cartels are controlling their movements for another benefit; meaning, to systematically overwhelm Border Patrol, create a gap in the border security, and then bring the narcotics across,” he said.
Human smuggling is a large source of revenue for cartels, as they charge between $7,000 and $8,000 to cross the border, Jose Ramos of the Tijuana Colegio de la Frontera Norte (College of the Northern Border) told Border Report.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know how many migrants die on their journey to the border, Mark Morgan, former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said Tuesday morning on “The National Desk.”
“The reality is, we don’t know how many migrants have died at the hands of cartels, smugglers, or coyotes,” Morgan said. The term “coyote” refers to someone who smuggles illegal migrants across the southern border.
“What we do know, though, is in the first 24 months of the Biden administration, they set yet another record, and that’s a number of dead migrants that Customs and Border Protection has recovered on the U.S. side. That number exceeds 1,500,” Morgan said.
According to data Border Patrol shared with CBS News, more than 850 migrants died in fiscal year 2022 while attempting to cross the southern border illegally. In fiscal year 2021, that number reached 546, more than double the 247 known deaths in 2020.
“We have no idea how many migrants have died in Mexico,” Morgan said, adding, “That is why I get so frustrated when [Homeland Security Department Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas says he’s developed a safe and orderly, humane system. It’s simply a lie.”
Last April, while testifying before a congressional committee, Mayorkas was asked by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas: “Will you testify under oath right now: Do we have operational control [of the border], yes or no?”
“Yes, we do,” Mayorkas responded.
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 defines operational control as “prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.”
What the Biden administration did, Morgan said, was, “they jettison all the leverage and strength we have with Mexico for them to join us in partners to help reduce the flow. Instead, they reversed it, they got rid of policies, and we have the disaster we have now at our border.”
Morgan, and a number of Republican lawmakers, have called for Mayorkas to be impeached over his handling of the southern border.
From October 2021 through September 2022 in the Del Rio sector alone, a stretch of 53,063 square miles in Texas, the lives of at least 260 migrants were lost attempting to cross the southern border.
“Don’t risk it,” Chief Border Patrol Agent Jason Owens warned in a short video with Spanish subtitles posted on the Facebook page of the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector last year. “This journey is deadly. It’s dangerous. It can cost you your life.”
Customs and Border Protection actively works to save the lives of illegal immigrants at the southern border, reporting 3,423 migrant rescues in fiscal year 2021.
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