Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, used social media Friday to explain why "every city in America" is a southern border city.
Cruz tweeted, "The Biden Administration's open border policy is a cash cow for the cartel."
He then attached a video of himself addressing reporters Wednesday about the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. The snippet began with Cruz explaining why "every city" in the country is affected by the crisis.
"When the illegal immigrants come over, they're wearing bracelets. The bracelets correspond with the money they had paid and the additional money they owe to the cartels," said Cruz, who added it cost between "$3,000 and $8,000 to cross illegally."
"You cannot cross without going through the cartels. If you try to cross on your own, the cartels will kill you."
The senator then explained that the Biden administration transports the teenage boys around the U.S.
"Those teenage boys owe thousands of dollars to the cartels and they work for the cartels in your city," Cruz said. "In Washington, D.C., in New York, in Boston, in Des Moines, in Miami, in Sacramento, and in every city in the country, there are teenage boys working for the cartels to pay off their debt. And if they don't pay it off, [the cartels will] kill their family."
Cruz said migrant teenage girls actually have it worse than the boys.
"Many of the teenage girls get put into sex slavery where they're forced to sell their bodies to pay off the cartels," he said.
"You're a 15-year-old Honduran girl who dreamed of freedom in America and you wake up to the nightmare of being trapped in sexual slavery or else your family will be murdered. Those are the human consequences of what's happening now."
Border Patrol statistics showed more than 1.7 million migrant encounters at the southern border for fiscal year 2021. So far this fiscal year, Oct. 1-Feb. 29, there had been 838,685 encounters — and that doesn't include "gotaways," migrants who evaded border agents.
More than 62,000 migrants evaded Border Patrol agents last month, Fox News reported.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the Biden administration was expected to end Title 42, which allowed authorities to deny entry into the country due to concerns about COVID-19, by May 23.