Border Patrol agents in the remote Texas Big Bend Sector are sounding the alarm as Mexican cartels overwhelm them with illegal immigrants ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration. The sector has very few agents assigned and has remained one of the most open and unsecured regions along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Border Patrol Agent Shawn Moran spoke exclusively with Breitbart Texas on the matter. Agent Moran is vice president of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), the union representing approximately 16,500 Border Patrol agents. He stated, “This situation shows what happens when Border Patrol continues to use an outdated enforcement strategy. Since the initiation of Operation Gatekeeper, the Border Patrol has strengthened some sectors at the expense of others. Agent Moran continued, “Mexican cartels take the path of least resistance. They flood the RGV Sector (Rio Grande Valley) with illegal aliens. Border Patrol then redirects agents to that sector. The cartels then utilize the now-deleted sector for their profits. The smuggling routes are owned by cartels. They are leased by the smugglers to bring illegal aliens into he U.S., and they are used strategically to influence how the Border Patrol assigns resources.”
Border Patrol Agent Lee Smith also spoke exclusively with Breitbart Texas on the matter. Agent Lee is president of NBPC Local 2509 and represents the other agents in the Big Bend Sector. He stated, “Like all 9 sectors, we’ve seen an increase over the past two years. Recently we began apprehending groups as large as 50. We are not like the other sectors because we only have one agent to patrol 70 miles of border at times in some of our stations. Our sector is massive and we have the fewest agents per square mile on the U.S.-Mexico border. We are roughly 25 percent of the entire Southwest border, yet we only have 10 percent of the agents that the Tucson Sector has.”
Agent Lee continued, “We have multiple Mexican cartels operating in our sector, where most sectors have one or two. Many of the criminal groups make as much or more from illegal immigration and human trafficking as they do from narcotics. They are really overwhelming our abilities ahead of President-elect Trump taking office. The cartels are swamping our Presidio station with illegal aliens. Waves are coming and they use this to divert our resources away from other stretches of the border where they can then send special interest aliens or narcotics through.”
Breitbart Texas reached out to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for comment and will update this piece when comment is received.
The Big Bend Sector has largely been seen as too remote or far from large urban areas to be a national security concern, as smugglers would have to travel long distances to successfully get loads of narcotics or human beings into the interior of the nation. However, the Tucson Sector has areas that are similar to much of the Big Bend Sector and groups under the flag of the Sinaloa Federation or cartel have devised a system of scouts that operate deep within the U.S. to manage getting such loads through. The same cartel operates in parts of the Big Bend Sector. U.S. law enforcement resources are spread so thin in the area that U.S. authorities simply do not know if the same system is in play in the Big Bend Sector.
Due to the lack of data from the sector, Breitbart Texas has developed and largely relied on sources south of the sector in Mexico. Narcotics are flowing freely to the area immediately south of the Big Bend Sector, as previous Breitbart Texas reporting indicates.
Listen to Brandon Darby discuss this article on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM:
Brandon Darby is managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon and you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.