Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, on Sunday said ruthless criminal cartels from around the world are expediting the surge of immigration at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Cornyn lamented the migrants “are literally coming from all over the world.”
“What people need to understand is these are criminal organizations and they trade in things that make them money, whether it's trafficking …women and children for sex, whether it's … illegal drugs… and the people who want to come from central America and Mexico,” he said.
“These criminal organizations have networks all around the world and it's just a matter of price,” he added.
“These cartels care nothing about the people. All they care about is the money and any commodity, anything they can do for a buck they will do it,” he said.
According to Cornyn, the situation at the border now is “a crisis.”
“When a similar surge happened a few years ago, President [Barack] Obama himself called it a humanitarian crisis and as I suggested, this is going to get nothing but worse as the spring comes,” he said.
“In the springtime, we usually see the numbers go up so I believe we're going to see an upward tick, he said. “One of the Border Patrol [officials] estimates we're going to see as many as 117,000 unaccompanied children alone by the end of the year.”
In February, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers encountered more than 100,000 migrants attempting to enter the U.S., an almost threefold increase from a year earlier. More than 5,700 unaccompanied minors were apprehended at the border in January, the highest total for that month in recent years.
The White House has come under fire as hundreds of immigrant children are detained in rudimentary Border Patrol facilities beyond the three-day limit dictated by a 1997 court settlement. Unaccompanied minors are supposed to be transferred to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services, which has longer-term housing facilities and attempts to connect underage migrants with family already in the U.S.
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