Republican governors meeting in Texas after an invitation by Gov. Greg Abbott were concerned about how the worsening situation at the southern border is affecting their states, particularly when it comes to the flow of fentanyl and other drugs that are entering the country, Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Newsmax Thursday.
"What they're looking at is how this crisis is affecting the children in their states, and all the drugs that are flowing in," Judd told Newsmax's "Wake Up America," while discussing the meeting of governors held on Wednesday. "The number of deaths that we're seeing throughout the United States because of fentanyl overdoses is astronomical. It's beyond anything that we've ever seen before, and all of those drugs are coming across the southwest border and that is that was the focus of this visit."
Judd added that he's been working for 25 years as a Border Patrol agent, and he's never seen the situation be this bad.
"When Donald Trump was [still] president on Jan. 20, this did not exist," said Judd. "We've never experienced anything like this before."
He added that back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the majority of migrants that were being dealt with were from Mexico.
"We would apprehend them," he said. "We would return them directly to Mexico, and they would cross again. I personally apprehended the exact same group twice in one shift."
But now, the migrants aren't from Mexico but are from around the world, said Judd.
"We are seeing cartels that are able to go into countries and advertise services and get people to put themselves in their hands," said Judd. "These are very dangerous cartels. They abuse women; they rape children. Sometimes they even murder these vulnerable individuals."
He blamed the surge firmly on the policies from the Biden administration.
"It's driving what we're seeing today on the border, and that's not anything that we have ever seen before," said Judd. "When you look at the bridge in Del Rio, the very next day after we cleared out that bridge we apprehended people from Senegal, Gambia. Angola, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Chile. We're apprehending people from around the world, and that's not something that we have seen in the past."
The cartels, meanwhile, are profiting from the policies, said Judd, noting that they generate "$400 million every single month, and that doesn't include the drug trade."
That means Mexico does not want to shut down illegal immigration, because that money goes back into its economy, he continued.
"The only person that was ever able to get Mexico to do anything and become a true border security partner was President Trump and that's because he threatened tariffs that were greater than the amount of money that the criminal cartels were able to generate and produce for that country. So again if president Biden doesn't do something, and step up and force Mexico to become a true border security partner, we're going to continue to see all of these numbers continue."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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