Bad Samaritans | Part 2

Part 2. A CRISIS AT HOME AND ABROAD

In the 2005 Compendium of the Catechism, an abridgment authorized by Pope Benedict XVI, paragraph 409 teaches:

“The most complete realization of the common good is found in those political communities which defend and promote the good of their citizens … without forgetting the universal good of the entire human family.”

This paragraph is key to an analysis of the Biden-Harris border crisis in multiple ways. 

First, while acknowledging the importance of universal human rights and duties, this teaching implies that the primary duty of government is to its own citizens. Indeed, this principle can be confirmed more explicitly elsewhere: as we will show later on, the priority of citizens was clearly taught in another compilation of Church teaching, the 2004 Compendium of Social Doctrine. 

Second, it must be made clear that the current chaos at the southern US border is not simply bad for this country and its citizens. It is also damaging to “the universal good of the entire human family.” 

In a February 2024 congressional hearing on “The Consequences of Catch and Release at the Border,” Jessica M. Vaughan (of the Center for Immigration Studies) summarized both the national and international impact of the ongoing border catastrophe.

“The mass migration disaster instigated by the Biden Administration’s misguided immigration policies has caused incalculable harm to American communities,” Vaughan said in her opening statement to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. 

“The catch and release policies that are the key to the Biden open borders doctrine have brought in more than 3.3 million illegal migrants, not counting another 1.7 million ‘got-aways.’”

“Only a tiny fraction, less than one percent of those allowed to enter after crossing illegally, have been removed after their overly generous due process. The rest have settled into American communities and are being supported by taxpayers.”

“Biden’s policies have so far cost taxpayers billions of dollars in the short term for shelter and support, and likely will cost hundreds of billions more over the long term for welfare benefits, whether to continue to support a population that is unlikely to ever be self-sufficient or to deal with processing and repatriating the large numbers who are unlikely to ever qualify for a legal status.”

“And the expansion of illicit border-crossing opportunities has led to the abuse and exploitation of migrants on a mass scale and an explosion in human trafficking, including luring children into forced labor and worse. It has greatly damaged the integrity of our immigration system and exposed Americans to new national security and public safety threats.”

“While employers seeking cheap labor and the NGOs getting lucrative contracts love these policies, it is the Mexican cartels who love them the most. They are reaping unprecedented profits to the tune of $30 million a day. And as a result, they represent a serious threat to civil society and the rule of law, even in the United States.”

“This cannot be allowed to continue.”

Later in her testimony, Vaughan pointed out that “the cartels are making more money from human smuggling now than they are from drug smuggling.” This is an astonishing fact, especially considering that most Americans probably associate Mexican criminal cartels mainly with the drug trade. 

Even more amazingly, the cartels are making much of this profit through activities conducted openly and with the direct cooperation of American border security officials. 

In his book Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in US History, investigative journalist Todd Bensman described the surreal scene he saw on the Rio Grande River in May 2021. 

Human smugglers were brazenly ferrying groups of migrants to the Texas side of the border, politely cooperating with border patrol agents to initiate what everyone knew would be the start of a catch-and-release process. 

“Mexican cartel-piloted rafts were moving three, four, and five abreast toward American officers and soldiers standing on the Texas shoreline,” Bensman recounted. The migrants, “mostly women and children … weighed down each boat as shirtless cartel pilots in shorts furiously paddled. The rafts had been arriving wave after wave like this from the first day that a new US president had taken office.” 

In 23 years of journalism and nearly a decade of counterterrorism work, Bensman had never seen anything like it. “Criminal cartels were in a consummated partnership with federal law enforcement officers in an organized smuggling enterprise … earning the cartels billions of dollars.” 

“The raft formations hit the boulder-strewn Texas waterline feet from American law enforcement officers and soldiers, who stood passively as the migrants poured out … Badged, uniformed Border Patrol agents, National Guard soldiers, and often local law enforcement officers, all side arms holstered, acted as a welcoming committee. The officers chatted amiably with their former cartel adversaries and accepted the immigrant handoffs like relay racers accepting a baton.” 

“‘How many more ya got over there?’ a Border Patrol agent at the water’s edge asked a cartel member who was paddling his raft back to the Mexican side.”

“‘Cinco o seis, mi amigo,’ the pilot called back. Five or six.” 

“Whereas immigration law requires all illegally crossing immigrants to be kept for as long as necessary in ICE detention centers until they can be deported,” Bensman observed, “the Border Patrol agents were manning field processing stations set up just a bit inland, prepping the new arrivals to skip detention entirely for quick releases instead to all four corners of America.” 

Later in this report, more will be said about how this catch-and-release operation threatens the rule of law in America. For the moment, however, the critical point is that it involves cooperation on a mass scale between US law enforcement officials, and the human smuggling division of criminal enterprises that have been called “the modern scourge of the Western Hemisphere.” 

Jessica Vaughan gave more detail on this perverse partnership, in an essay published shortly before her February 2024 congressional appearance: “Biden Border Policies Are Working Fine – For the Cartels.”

“The cartels are reaping unprecedented profits from human and drug smuggling and trafficking, to the tune of $30 million a day, or nearly $1 billion a month, according to a House Budget Committee report. They use the funds to acquire more sophisticated weapons and technology to solidify control over their territories in Mexico and beyond,” Vaughan wrote in the article. 

She described the cartels’ exploitation of migrants, as well as their broader strategy: 

“The smuggling fee is currently about $8,000 for passage to America. Many migrants make only a down payment upfront of about $500 and agree to work off the rest when they get to their destination. If they have children, they are encouraged to accept a reduced fee for loaning one of their kids to another single migrant, in order to pose as a family for near-certain release, and retrieve them on the other side – hopefully.”

“The remainder is typically paid through debt bondage accomplished by wage garnishment, fees for housing and food, and other forms of exploitation and outright threats and extortion. Long-haul migrants from other continents pay more, sometimes up to $50,000, and those who don’t want to get caught also pay more.”

“Obviously, the cartels are not humanitarian actors seeking only to help asylum seekers; nor are they young, impetuous gang-bangers. They behave like terrorists, and they have a plan, which they hire well-trained and well-armed violent thugs to carry out … This business model requires creating a ‘safe’ environment in which to operate. The cartels often create their safe space through violence, extortion, and even corruption of public officials.”

An especially horrific aspect of this cartel “business model,” further detailed in Bensman’s Overrun, is the trafficking of children to create the fraudulent appearance of families crossing the border.

“Policies that created special rights for people who cross the border with children naturally elevated the value of children,” Bensman observed. “Any parent with more than one found they could defray thousands of dollars in smuggling costs to get the whole family in … so long as the biological parents didn’t mind taking some risk with the kids they’d rent out.” 

Monica Maple, a former ICE agent who spoke to Bensman about these child trafficking scams, called the phenomenon “a new low for humanity.” She also said there were many cases of parents unable to find their children, after renting them to others in cooperation with the cartels. 

Much more could be said about the evils of the cartels, such as their well-known sexual exploitation of those being illegally trafficked into the US. 

More relevant here, however, is the de facto partnership that now exists between these criminals and the US government, under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris. 

The Biden-Harris catch-and-release policies literally play into the hands of human smugglers – allowing them to casually and openly hand off their cargo to border agents, as Bensman witnessed. Under the Biden-Harris administration, this is a multi-billion dollar business, more lucrative than drug smuggling for the cartels.

These are painful and shocking facts, especially when considered in light of the Church’s teaching – which says political leaders must “defend and promote the good of their citizens … without forgetting the universal good of the entire human family.”

By this standard, the Biden-Harris border policies are a disaster for all sides. 

We began this report by discussing patriotism – and there will certainly be more to say, in the following sections, about the impact of an uncontrolled, hemorrhaging border on the US alone. However, just as Catholic social doctrine requires us to see our country within the wider global picture, we must view the Biden-Harris border crisis on both levels.

It is crucial to understand that the Biden-Harris illegal immigration crisis is not, by any means, a situation that simply benefits foreigners and other countries at the expense of America and its citizens. 

Rather,

it is a profoundly harmful situation both for Americans and foreign nationals – especially through the massive enrichment and empowerment of criminal cartels, as they ruthlessly exploit America’s weakness and immigrants’ willingness to break our laws.    

To understand the impact on our country, we turn to Catholic social teaching and the Christian virtue of patriotism.

Part 3: Coming August 28, 2024 

About the Author: Benjamin Mann is a Byzantine Catholic and has written for several publications including Catholic News Agency, Catholic Exchange, and Real Clear Religion.

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