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Human trafficking arrests in Texas are skyrocketing as the ongoing border crisis continues to surge.
The Center for Immigration Studies reports that U.S. Customs and Border Control (CBP) apprehended nearly 189,000 immigrants at the southwest border in the month of June alone. This marks a 5% increase in apprehension since May, and is the highest number of apprehensions in a single month in the last 10 years. CBP reports that encounters are up 313.8% overall for fiscal year 2021 compared to last year.
The soaring rates of illegal border crossings has been accompanied by troubling rates of human trafficking. According to Karl Rove in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, since Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to intensify border patrols last March, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has made 1,800 arrests for human trafficking, as well as other crimes such as drug smuggling. Furthermore, the DPS has apprehended over 45,000 immigrants, many of which are members of Mexican cartels and gangs. So far, the Texas legal system has convicted 19 immigrants of sex crimes and subsequently deported them.
According to Reuters, many cartels in Mexico who previously stole oil and sold drugs are shifting to human trafficking as a new lucrative stream of revenue. Mexico is an origin, transit and destination country for the sex trafficking industry, and has recently seen an uptick in gangs shifting to dealing in people. Cartels that have shifted to the human trafficking industry include the Guanajuato-based Santa Rosa de Lima gang and Mexico City's Tepito Union drug gang.
Santiago Nieto, head of Mexico’s financial intelligence unit, told Reuters that many gangs are shifting to sex trafficking as their main source of revenue and estimated that trafficking has become the third largest illicit activity in Mexico, behind drug and arms dealing.
FOX News recently reported that Mexican cartels make as much as $14 million dollars a day smuggling individuals across the border and into the United States. Retired Tucson Border Patrol Chief Roy Villareal recently stated that trafficked individuals become slaves to pay to be smuggled across the U.S. border.
“A lot of these vulnerable populations use their life savings,” Villareal told FOX News. “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.”
In his op-ed, Rove juxtaposes two massively differing viewpoints regarding the current border crisis. During a June 25 visit to El Paso, Vice President Kamala Harris stated that “we have seen extreme progress over these last few months.” On June 30, Abbott stated that “the Biden administration is completely failing” in their attempt to correct the border crisis. Addressing this disagreement, Kelly Hancock, chairman of the State Senate Veterans Affairs and Border Security Committee, concluded that “Facts say the governor is right and make it difficult to figure out Ms. Harris’ definition of ‘extreme progress.’”
A June poll conducted by the Washington Post/ABC found that a staggering 51% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of “the immigration situation at the U.S.-Mexico border,” whereas only 33% approve of his actions.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center supports the poll data and revealed that over two-thirds (68%) of Americans think the current administration is doing a “bad job” at dealing with the border crisis and nearly 8 in 10 (79%) of respondents believe it is very or somewhat important to reduce the number of asylum seekers at the U.S. border.