We Must Declare Mexican Cartels as Terrorist Organizations, Says Brandon Darby on C-SPAN

The United States must step forward and declare some of the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, said Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby during an interview with C-SPAN.

“Most of the politicians in the border states are actually surrogates or have been surrogates of the criminal organizations that control those regions,” Darby said during a live taping in the border city of Laredo of the C-SPAN show Washington Journal. “Ultimately it going to take that (declaring cartels as terrorists) to stop them.”

As a terrorist organization, the U.S. could go after the corrupt politicians that protect them, the banks that funnel their money and other entities that the criminal organizations rely on. The measure is the same that authorities eventually did with narco-terrorist in Colombia such as the FARC, he said. While there are drug cartels like the Sinaloa Federation that tend to leave the public alone for the most part, in the case of the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, the brutality with which those cartels victimize the innocents is enough to warrant the tittle.

MEXICAN NARCO-POLITICIANS

One of the topics that came up during the interview with C-SPAN’s Greta Brawen dealt with how Mexican politicians and drug cartels are closely aligned and have a history of working hand in hand giving the criminal organizations strict control of the region.

“The last governor (of Coahuila, Humberto Moreira) was in trouble for being a surrogate for Los Zetas cartel,” Darby said.

In the case of Tamaulipas’ last two governors, Tomas Yarrington and Eugenio Hernandez,  “those last two governors are fugitives of U.S. Justice for being surrogates of the Gulf cartel.”

Because of the widespread corruption and the total control, government officials and or cartel members are able to control the media.

“They have people called links to control all the media outlets, (they) tell people what they can and can’t write about,” Darby said.

One of the ways that Breitbart Texas was able to counter that control was to recruit individuals who were willing to risk their lives in order write about the realities of Mexico.

“We find those people and allow them write under a pseudonym and publish their words in English and Spanish and present them to a larger audience so people can know what is going on,” Darby said. 

U.S. POLITICS

In the case of the drug cartels and Mexican political corruption, the issue becomes even more complex because of the current political environment.

“On one hand we have a Republican candidate who is very willing to offend the corrupt politicians in Mexico; unfortunately. he’s offended most of the people in Mexico,” Darby said. “On the other hand you have a Democratic party who unfortunately, has not show a willingness to offend the corrupt politicians in Mexico.”

Darby told Brawen that in the past, there has been pressure from the U.S Department of State to the FBI telling them to “balance their law enforcement actions with diplomatic concerns.”

POLITICAL APPOINTEES PLAYING GAMES

The interview between Darby and Brawen went into how the narrative being driven from Washington by the management of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is not an accurate depiction of what is really happening on the border.

Because of CBP’s management “not being forthcoming with the American public” Breitbart Texas visits the border unannounced, he said.

“Last year Jorge Ramos with Fusion came to the border and announced it two weeks ahead of time. We came a week before and we filmed the entire area south of us,” Darby said. 

At the time Breitbart Texas filmed the area, the team did not find any cameras, boats, lights or agents on the ground revealing a wide open border.

“The next Friday when Jorge Ramos came,there were agents riding ATV’s, agents on boats, agents on helicopters,” Darby explained. “They actually pulled agents from other areas and put them in this one area. Then Jorge Ramos came and said look, what do you want? Look at how secure this is.”

THE LEGAL SYSTEM

During the interview, Darby spoke with Brawen about the difficulties of the current immigration system where individuals seeking to enter the country in a legal fashion are met with multiple challenges.

For the most part the individuals who are able to enter the country in a legal way are individuals who can prove they have wealth and resources in Mexico, thus leaving out the low income agricultural workers or other individuals who may seek a route to legally migrate and work.

“We have a system that encourages people to come illegally,” Darby said.

Changing the immigration system has not been a real option because individuals with left of center ideals believe they are helping Mexican and Central American immigrants by leaving it as is. In a similar fashion, Darby said individuals with right of center ideals also do not want things to change.

“In Texas, for example, the funders of different Republican candidates are builders who have business models based on the exploitation of foreign labor,” he said.

CARTELS DO NOT WANT CHANGE

One of the topics covered by Darby at length deals with Mexico’s inability to stop drug cartels. In the interview, he went into the description of Mexico or the border as a monolithic thing is actually a misguided since in fact the region is split up into various regions controlled by multiple criminal organizations known as cartels.

“(The Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas) routinely make more money from illegal immigration than they do from narcotics,” Darby said. “Our system fuels that. People think they are helping the people in Mexico by allowing them to cross illegally between ports of entry, but they are not.”