Amid\nthe chaotic crush of migrants at America\u2019s southern border, one group is\nreaping multimillion-dollar profits: Central America\u2019s criminal drug cartels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of Central American narcotics cartels — transnational criminal organizations — are facilitating smugglers in moving aliens, rather than drugs because it\u2019s more profitable right now,\u201d said Thomas Homan<\/a>, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Homan, who is said to be President Donald Trump\u2019s choice for the role of the first-ever national \u201cborder czar,\u201d<\/a> said the festering humanitarian crisis \u201cis making these cartels very, very rich.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Davidson<\/a>, a reporter who traveled to the Guatemala-Mexico border, confirmed Homan\u2019s account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom the moment Central American migrants cross Mexico\u2019s southern border and begin their journey north, the entire process is a massive, multifarious, black-market, moneymaking machine,\u201d he wrote in the Federalist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCartels\ngenerally require every man, woman and child who passes through their territory\non the way to the U.S. border pay a tax, which is often included in the total\nfee smugglers quote to Central American families,\u201d according to Davidson.\n\u201cWithout paying this tax [which Homan calls a \u201cPlaza Fee\u201d], migrants cannot\ncross the Rio Grande, and in many cases are at risk of being kidnapped or\notherwise exploited.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s easy money for the cartels. Using a rough, as well as conservative, estimate of Plaza Fees, Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies figures that the 144,000 illegal aliens who crossed the U.S. border in May paid $144 million to the cartels for final safe passage through northern Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[The cartels] don\u2019t\nhave to grow a single poppy. They don\u2019t have to make a single pound of meth.\nThey just get the money, and if you don\u2019t pay you\u2019re dead,\u201d Arthur says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a belated\nattempt to stanch the Central American migrant flow at its source, Mexico has\npledged to deploy 6,000 troops to\nits 541-mile border with Guatemala. How effective that effort is over the\nlong-term remains to be seen. The Guatemalan government<\/a>\n\u2013 like Mexico\u2019s — has been neck-deep in the drug- and human-smuggling industry\nfor years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While\nWashington politicians and presidential aspirants ritually bash Trump and bemoan\nthe plight of migrants lining up to enter the U.S., a do-nothing Congress refuses\nto pass laws to stem the swelling tide of asylum seekers, or even to\neffectively manage the crowds once they\u2019re here. Where\u2019s the outrage over the\ncriminal facilitation and profiteering of this humanitarian crisis?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amid the chaotic crush of migrants at America\u2019s southern border, one group is reaping multimillion-dollar profits: Central America\u2019s criminal drug cartels. \u201cA lot of Central American narcotics cartels — transnational criminal organizations — are facilitating smugglers in moving aliens, rather than drugs because it\u2019s more profitable right now,\u201d said Thomas Homan, former acting director of<\/p>\n