Border / Cartel Chronicles - Page 38

An illegitimate Biden administration program intended to provide humanitarian relief for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) fleeing the horrible conditions present in their home countries has admitted many of the migrants from safe, prosperous third countries instead. According to House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, DHS documents show many of the inadmissible migrants under the CHNV program were admitted from Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Hong Kong, Lt. Lucia, Sweden, and other wealthy nations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture halted the importation of avocados and mangoes from Mexico following the abduction of two of its workers in a state known for cartel violence.

A federal judge sentenced a San Antonio woman to 14 years in prison for her role in a migrant smuggling scheme where she claimed to be a federal agent. She also claimed to be an immigration attorney. The woman collected more than $275,000 from 95 migrants and their families.

Savage New Mexico wildfires near Ruidoso led to the evacuation of approximately 8,000 residents. At least one person died and more than 1,400 structures were burned in the South Fork and Salt Fires. The fires consumed more than 23,000 acres

Mexican government officials publicly rejected a recent travel warning issued by the U.S. Department of State in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas. The warning advised U.S. citizens not to travel by bus, citing targeted kidnappings of American citizens and residents in the neighboring border city of Reynosa. Mexican officials continue to claim the border region is safe, even though the region is under the control of the Gulf Cartel and continues to go through a hyperviolent turf war.

Border Patrol agents in Blythe, California, arrested a California man and his 17-year-old brother after a service K-9 alerted the agents to the presence of a large cache of semi-automatic rifles in their vehicle. In total, agents seized 25 AK-style rifles, two handguns, and ammunition magazines on Wednesday in Blythe, California. Jose Palma Almendariz and his teenage brother now face federal charges related to Wednesday’s firearms and magazine seizure.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the San Diego Field Office seized tons of illicit drugs during May. A single smuggling attempt led to the seizure of more than 11,000 pounds of methamphetamine — the third-largest meth seizure in CBP history.

Two gunmen riding on a motorcycle fired several shots at the entrance of a news building in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The region is known for the impunity with which drug cartels operate.

The Texas Department of Public Safety announced the arrest this week of its number one most wanted criminal illegal immigrant. This is the second arrest this month from the State’s newly created Top 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List.

Authorities in Mexico rescued 13 Central American migrants who had been kidnapped and were being tortured by their captors to force families to pay ransom for their release.

Search parties found numerous clandestine graveyards in the rural area of the Mexican border state of Sonora near the international border with Arizona. The discoveries come at a time when cartel violence has been plaguing the border state despite empty assurances made by Mexico’s government.

Los equipos de búsqueda han encontrado numerosos cementerios clandestinos en el estado fronterizo mexicano de Sonora, en una zona rural cerca de la frontera con Arizona. Los descubrimientos se producen en un momento en que la violencia de los cárteles ha estado plagando el estado fronterizo a pesar de las vacías garantías hechas por el gobierno de México.

Swanton Sector Border Patrol agents arrested more than 3,000 migrants in May, setting a new record for the Canadian border sector. The arrests bring this fiscal year’s total to more than 10,000 — another sector record.

Mexican authorities announced the rescue of 29 women who were being sex-trafficked at a bar near the beach hotspot of Cancun.

Authorities arrested two human smugglers in the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, on kidnapping charges following the rescue of two migrants who were being held for ransom.

Las autoridades arrestaron a dos traficantes de personas en la ciudad fronteriza mexicana de Piedras Negras bajo cargos de secuestro luego de que se rescatara a dos migrantes que habían sido secuestrados por el cobro de rescate.

Bexar County, Texas, Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested seven people involved in an alleged migrant smuggling scheme that saw 11 migrants taken to a hospital in San Antonio, Texas on Thursday. The migrants were discovered hidden in a concealed compartment in a goose-neck trailer outside a south San Antonio stash house. Deputies received a tip reporting the criminal activity earlier in the day and located the trailer as it arrived at the suspected stash house.

Border Patrol chiefs in three sectors of the southwest border with Mexico report a daily apprehension rate of more than 2,600 per day during their most recent weekly recaps. The reports from these three of the nine southwest border sectors exceed President Joe Biden’s new executive order imposing a cap of 2,500 migrants per day on a seven-day average. 

A former Mexican congressional candidate will spend 12 years in prison for drugging and sexually abusing his 11-year-old daughter. Authorities believe the abuse may have gone on for years before the assaults were discovered.

Migrant apprehensions in the Tucson Sector jumped for the third straight week. Agents in the Arizona border sector apprehended nearly 8,000 migrants shortly before President Joe Biden announced his newest immigration executive order.

Police arrested a Mexican national on Texas’ Top 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Migrants List who was wanted for a parole violation on a murder charge. The arrest comes one day after Governor Greg Abbott announced the law enforcement tool on Wednesday.

A Mexican pastor is currently jailed and awaiting sentencing following her conviction this week on forced labor charges. The conviction is tied to a migrant shelter she ran in Ciudad Juarez.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced on Wednesday the state’s newest effort to crack down on the immigration crisis created by the Biden administration. Abbott launched a “Texas 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List.”

President Joe Biden invited several border city mayors to his signing of an executive order limiting asylum claims at the southwest border on Tuesday. The order allegedly aims to further reduce slower migrant crossing rates that have dropped precipitously since January. One Texas mayor, Rolando Salinas of Eagle Pass, one of the nation’s busiest migrant crossing points during Biden’s first three years in office, was left off the invite list and questions the motive and timing for the president’s newest executive order.

A group of suspected cartel gunmen shot and killed the first woman mayor in the town of Cotija, Michoacan, a state suffering from widespread cartel violence. The killing comes just one day after Mexico held its national elections. The victim had survived a separate cartel kidnapping in 2023.

According to a senior-level Customs and Border Protection source, the latest executive order signed by President Biden on Tuesday will do little more than make Americans grow accustomed to more than 2 million migrant entries into the United States annually. The source, not authorized to speak to the media, says the order will do little to change the landscape of an out-of-control border even if legal challenges by pro-migrant civil rights groups fail to kill the order outright.

The House Committee on Natural Resources will hold a hearing on President Joe Biden’s border crisis and efforts to combat criminal cartels and drug trafficking on Tuesday, June 4.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate for the ruling leftist party, was overwhelmingly elected the next president of Mexico in Sunday’s general election.

In the month leading up to Sunday’s Mexican presidential election, migrant apprehensions along the U.S. southwestern border dropped to less than 118,000. This represents the third lowest month since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Five migrants lost their lives during a five-day stretch just in one Texas border sector. In the Del Rio Sector, once the busiest region for migrant crossings in the nation, five migrants perished as they attempted to reach the United States.  

The son of a Gulf Cartel operator who helped run a large-scale operation in Texas will spend two and a half years in federal prison for trying to intimidate federal agents. The agents were hunting for his father and potential witnesses against him.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott welcomed the first 300 National Guard soldiers as they relocated to a new forward operating base located on the Mexican border just south of Eagle Pass. Abbott toured “Forward Operating Base Eagle” on Friday alongside Adjutant General of Texas Major General Thomas Suelzer and Texas Border Czar Mike Banks. The Governor held a press conference after the tour, providing more details about the latest developments at the base camp.

The murder of a top operator within a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel is sending shockwaves throughout Mexico. While the masterminds behind the murder remain unknown, the killing is expected to lead to violent consequences.

A mayoral candidate in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, canceled her final campaign event after a recording artist headlining her event received a series of threats believed to come from the Gulf Cartel.

A gunman shot and killed a Mexican mayoral candidate as he was about to take the stage during a campaign event in the coastal state of Guerrero. The murder comes amidst one of Mexico’s bloodiest election cycles, with at least 36 candidates murdered and over 300 political attacks in a span of less than a year.

A Mexican border state official actively worked with the Gulf Cartel to lure a group of businessmen to a local restaurant where gunmen from the Gulf Cartel then threatened them and extorted them. The businessmen provide food-vendor services to various international manufacturing companies operating in the border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas.