President Donald Trump has vowed to secure the nation’s southern border for more reasons than just illegal immigration, such as drug smuggling and terrorism.
One of those additional reasons for securing the border may have just been proved when Border Patrol agents in Texas caught two Syrian nationals sneaking into the country.
Terrorist Threat
According to Breitbart, the arrest of two Syrians on May 7 at the southern border would seem to confirm a suspected connection between the human smugglers and nations with connections to terrorism.
“We don’t know the intentions of the two Syrians we caught sneaking across the border into Texas,” admitted Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza, president of the National Border Patrol Council 2455, which oversees the Laredo sector.
“What we do know is that if the cartel-connected smugglers can bring people with good intentions across the border, they can also bring people with bad intentions,” he added.
The Laredo sector of the border region where the two Syrians were caught is controlled by the Los Zetas cartel, a cartel notorious for drug- and human-smuggling. Some 230 illegals from Bangladesh have also been caught at the border in that same area.
“Laredo is a prime target for these ruthless smugglers because of our sector’s shortage of manpower and the lack of a physical barrier,” explained Garza.
“We have 170 miles of river border with Mexico. Not one mile of that border has a physical barrier. We are wide open for these drug and human smugglers,” he added.
Cartels Will Do Anything
Garza stated that it was only because of the hard work of agents that any illicit border crossers were caught at all, and suggested that the violent cartel which ran the smuggling operations didn’t care if the people they helped cross illegally were good or bad, so long as they got paid.
That grim reality has raised concerns that smugglers and terrorists could work together to exploit the open portions of the border, placing the country at great risk.
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Laredo Sector Chief Patrol Agent Jason Owens explained, “You have to look not only at the numbers of folks coming across in our Area of Responsibility (AOR), but also, who they are and where they’re from because that very much affects how we meet the threat.”
There are more than just families, unaccompanied children and people seeking employment coming across the border, proving the need for Trump’s promised border wall to help secure the country.