The tentacles of criminal organizations like the Gulf Cartel or the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas do not end at the Texas border, said U.S. Congressman Chip Roy.
Congressman Roy made those statements during a series of exclusive interviews with Breitbart Texas as he traveled the Texas border in a fact-finding effort amid the current border crisis, which he attributed to the policies of the Biden Administration. Roy stepped away from the formal congressional delegations to border hotspots like McAllen, Laredo, Carrizo Springs, Eagle Pass, and others.
One of the largest takeaways of those visits is that Mexican cartels have real operational control of the border as Mexico’s government remains unable to do anything about it, Roy said.
“That’s something that the American people don’t fully understand,” he said. “The Mexican government–they can’t have their force mean anything in that area. The cartels have control there.”
However, according to Congressman Roy, the power of the cartels does not end at the border. In some cases, U.S. agencies in San Antonio and others have turned a blind eye to the presence and power of cartels, he said.
In the Rio Grande Valley, the Reynosa faction of the Gulf Cartel has been benefiting from the lack of enforcement at the border, while in Laredo the CDN-Los Zetas are the ones reaping the benefits, Roy said.
“They are the ones making a lot of money moving human beings for profit,” he said.
During those visits, Roy has encountered several groups of migrants, some of those who had been trying to run away from authorities such as in Laredo, while in the Rio Grande Valley, migrants became lost in the brush after crossing the river after not being able to find any agents.
“The word has gotten out that Border Patrol is now distracted,” Roy said, explaining that agents from other sectors have been moved to the Rio Grande Valley to man detention and processing facilities. “What does that mean? You don’t have patrols going out and stopping the flow between the ports of entry. So now we have fentanyl up, pounds of marijuana up, human smuggling between ports of entry up, and that is kind of where your bad guys are generally coming. This is the state of our border.”