Every illegal alien who pays to cross the border between the United States and Mexico is helping violent drug cartels, the president of the Border Patrol union claims, and in some instances, the cost of the help they receive is to carry across a backpack filled with heroin.
The National Border Patrol Council’s Laredo, Texas chapter president Hector Garza says that all undocumented immigrants coming into the United States go “through the hands of a drug cartel”, even if they don’t want the cartel’s assistance. The great majority of heroin is smuggled into the United States by undocumented immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border with the help of drug cartels in Mexico, according to officials in the Department of Homeland Security ‒ cartels that are ironically the cause of most of the conflict in the border regions that drives many immigrants to flee.
“When we talk about securing the border, it’s not just about stopping illegal immigration,” Garza points out. “It’s also about stopping dangerous drugs from entering our communities and our schools and getting into the hands of kids and affecting family members,” Garza adds that most drugs do not enter the United States via ports of entry, as it is easier simply to take them across the border.
Heroin has resulted in an epidemic of criminal violence and suffering in the US, and experts believe that securing the border would restrict the primary method by which drug cartels smuggle heroin into the country.