The crisis along the U.S.-Mexican  border continues with little effort from the Biden administration to stop the flood. In September, Del Rio, Texas, was nearly overrun when 30,000 illegal immigrants poured over the border into the town. This action meant illegal immigrants almost outnumbered actual citizens and, as a result, Del Rio’s public areas and living conditions deteriorated noticeably.

In 2021, approximately 1.7 million illegal immigrants have been arrested along our border. However, our federal government has done little to pro-actively intervene or address the primary issues that cause immigrants to leave their country. President Joe Biden met with Mexico’s President André Manuel López Obrador on November 18th. The two only briefly discussed the border. Obrador has stated that the U.S. should grant amnesty to the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and did not promise any help in stemming the tide of illegal crossings.

While the problems incurred along the border are overwhelming, the individuals coming here are far too often the victims. According to Pew Research, we have seen the highest levels of illegal crossings this year compared to the last several decades. However, despite the high level of crossings, the number of individuals crossing is down. This decrease is because an estimated 27% of individuals make multiple crossings across the border. One explanation for multiple crossings is that some illegal immigrants are caught, returned to their country of their origin, and then make other attempts to cross. Another explanation is that coyotes, the colloquial term for smugglers, are going back and forth smuggling victims of human trafficking across the border.

Kevin Lilly, Chairman of the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission, has closely followed the tragedy of human trafficking at the border. In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, Lilly claimed that 60% of Latin American children crossing the US-Mexican border are victims of trafficking. Approximately 80,000 children are currently being trafficked in the state of Texas alone. The crisis along the border is further facilitating and funding the $200 billion industry of human trafficking.

President Biden’s response to the border crisis and human trafficking has been a complete debacle. The administration’s policy requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to release families and unaccompanied minors 72 hours after being detained. Agents then serve them a notice to report to court for a hearing. Most immigrants do not comply with the notice to return, and minors and vulnerable adults are often quickly sold to traffickers.

The lack of intervention by the Biden administration means officials in border states are left on their own to manage the immigrant problem. Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) declared disaster areas in 47 Texas counties and deployed the National Guard to assist with border patrol and with the growing humanitarian crisis. Texas will likely see even more problems as a caravan of 2,000 migrants are currently making their way from Central American and Haiti to the US-Mexican border.

Recently, after discovering that the federal government was secretly flying illegal immigrants to Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) stated, “If they’re going to come here, we’ll provide buses. I will send them to Delaware and do that. If he’s [Biden] not going to support the border being secured, then he should be able to have everyone there.” DeSantis has also filed suit against the Biden administration for continuing the catch and release program.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also responded to the problem with the introduction of S. 3002, the Stop the Surge Act of 2021. The Committee on the Judiciary is reviewing the act which was introduced to Congress on October 19th. This bill would establish twelve new ports of entry that Homeland Security would maintain. Any illegal immigrant detained at our border would be sent to one of the twelve ports and processed to determine if they were qualified for entry or deportation. Additionally, the act would eliminate temporary asylum and the catch and release program. As proposed by U.S. Senator Cruz, the bill would help tighten border control and perhaps prevent traffickers from using the open border to victimize vulnerable children and adults.

To stop the inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants and the human trafficking at our borders, we must stop the influx of migrants. This crisis will only end if we tighten border control and make it clear to all individuals that there is an established, legal process for immigrating to our country. The federal government should not automatically grant amnesty if they are serious about stopping the tide of migrants breaching our border. If you believe the border crisis is a humanitarian disaster, do not hesitate to get in touch with your Congressional representatives and demand that the Stop the Surge Act 2021 be moved to the U.S. Senate floor for a vote.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth plus your own U.S. Representatives and voice your concerns regarding the border crisis and express your support for S. 3002, the Stop the Surge Act.

Ask them to secure our national borders! You can also call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your federal lawmaker by name. If the staff doesn’t pick up, be sure to leave your name, phone number, and your message that you want S. 3002 passed, the border secure, women and children protected and the border wall finished immediately. Please ask your friends to do the same!

More ACTION: If you suspect someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, whether an immigrant or a legal citizen, don’t hesitate to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at: (888) 373-7888.

Learn MORE:

[VIDEO] Texas mother, daughter killed as human smuggler crashes into them (Tucker Carlson)

During the spring General Assembly’s legislative session, Democrat state lawmakers introduced the Repeal the Parental Notice of Abortion Act (HB 1797 and SB 2190). Parents for the Protection of Girls hosted a press conference in opposition to the bill which featured powerful testimony from Laura Lederer, an attorney who’s studied human trafficking for more than 20 years, and Dr. Brook Bello, a pastoral clinical counselor and human trafficking survivor.

The bill would repeal current state law requiring young women under the age of 18 seeking an abortion to notify a parent, legal guardian, or grandparent at least 48 hours prior to the procedure taking place. It was introduced into the Illinois State Senate by Elgie Sims (D-Chicago), and into the Illinois House by Anna Moeller (D-Elgin) with elected House Speaker Emanuel Chris Welch serving as one of the bill’s main co-sponsors.

In Illinois, the The Catholic News Agency reported about 1,000 minors undergo an abortion annually. 

Study makes connections

Laura J. Lederer is the co-author of “The Health Consequences of Sex Trafficking and Their Implications for Identifying Victims in Healthcare Facilities.” The study proves a direct connection between human trafficking, health care providers, and abortion. During the press conference, she laid out key findings from the study that show “because of physical and emotionally abusive situations trafficking victims often seek healthcare providers for abortions, treatments of injuries, or birth control, among other health issues. These encounters with healthcare providers offer a life-saving opportunity for trafficking victims since they are alone with a trained authority who can contact family members or law enforcement on their behalf.”

She shared that 88 percent of the survivors had contact with some kind of healthcare provider while they were being trafficked. Sixty-three percent reported being taken to a hospital emergency room and 57 percent went to a neighborhood or women’s clinic.

According to the study, 71 percent of survivors became pregnant at least once while being trafficked. Twenty-one percent said they became pregnant five times or more, and 55 percent reported having at least one abortion. Thirty percent of trafficking survivors who become pregnant reported undergoing multiple abortions.

Of the women who had abortions, 68 percent were performed at a clinic, 16 percent at hospital, and 14 percent were performed by “other.” Over half of the survivors who had abortions reported they were forced to do so by their trafficker. According to Lederer, some were “beaten around their stomachs or womb” when their traffickers knew they were pregnant.

The bill has the support of the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and Planned Parenthood who claim the judicial bypass process is too tedious and harmful to minorities who may view the process as oppressive. Opponents of the bill have expressed concern that a repeal would offer protection to child molesters, rapists, and human traffickers in Illinois and surrounding states.

Lederer noted that abortion is a polarizing issue, but parental notice should be one both sides of the issue could stand behind. She shared, “Abortion and sex trafficking transcends the usual political boundaries of the abortion debate since it violates both the pro-life belief that abortion takes an innocent life and also the pro-choice ideal of a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive choices.”

Summing up her report, Lederer expressed sentiments that would seem to outweigh concerns opponents of the Parental Notice Act have expressed, “Illinois’ current law on parental notification of abortion offers a key opportunity to recognize a trafficking victim and to free her from a lifetime of slavery.”

Survivor speaks

Dr. Brook Bello, who was raped at the age of 11, trafficked at 15, and forced to undergo multiple abortions by her trafficker, confirmed Lederer’s statements about parental notification. During the press conference, she shared, “Had my parents been notified, my mother would have been notified what city I was near.” She further implied law enforcement could have been notified and she may have been rescued sooner.

After Bello was rescued, she was plagued by women’s health problems, including fertility issues. She shared how her doctor lamented that she had been slow to speak with him about her past due to the trauma of being trafficked. He told her had he known earlier, “we could have effectively dealt with all of the scar tissue, with all of the issues, and you could have been able to have had children.”

Bello is the founder of More Too Life, an anti-trafficking organization dedicated to mentoring survivors and providing training to recognize and combat human trafficking. Additionally, she’s an author, actress, pastoral counselor, wife, and the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Award from former President Barrack Obama. Having accomplished so much, she shared, “All I ever wanted was to be loved, to be married, to have three children. They’re [her children] in heaven.”

After recounting her traumatic past, she asked, “Why wouldn’t someone, unless it’s an emancipated youth, give that opportunity for that person’s parents to be notified?”

Speaking passionately Bello said, “I ask the public; I ask the Illinois legislators: ‘Why would you want a child to keep something secret that is going to affect her for the rest of her life?’”

She implored, “I beg of you, Illinois. I plead, Illinois, to not reverse, to please notify parents… Give them a safe place to fall and notify parents.”

The current Parental Notice law was passed in 1995 but wasn’t implemented until 2013 after a lengthy series of court battles. In addition to Illinois, 37 other states have some form of a parental notification law.

According to a survey of 600 Illinois registered voters taken March 7-10 by The Tarrance Group, 72 percent of Illinoisans agree or strongly agree that if a minor were seeking an abortion “the law should require her parent or guardian to be notified before the procedure.” Current law does not require minors to obtain an adult’s permission to undergo an abortion procedure, only notification.

When those surveyed were asked, “If a minor is seeking an abortion, do you believe a parent or guardian should be notified?” Just 22 percent replied “no” or “strongly no.”

Take Action: Click HERE to contact your state lawmakers. Let them know that gutting or repealing the Parental Notice of Abortion Act will subvert families and create an environment to protect their minor daughters’ abusers. Ask them to oppose any and all efforts to repeal or amend the law and, instead, uphold parental rights.

Ask your pastor to share this bulletin insert with your congregation.  The body of Christ and people of faith must be notified of this effort and encouraged to speak out now.

Bulletin Insert

Read more:

Man Raped 12-Year-Old 500 Times Resulting in 7 Abortions, Abortion Clinics Never Reported the Crime

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In recent years, some organizations and movements on the left have placed a greater emphasis on the role of slavery in our nation’s past. To their view, this “original” sin surrounding the nation’s beginnings cast a permanent pall that cannot ever be overcome. Black Lives Matter (BLM) and The 1619 Project are two of the most prominent examples of this, but neither seek to engage and end slavery for its present-day victims.

The U.S. State Department issued its 20th annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report over the summer, which estimated nearly 25 million adults and children around the world are victims of sex trafficking or forced labor—in other words, slavery. According to the State Department, “The United States considers ‘trafficking in persons,’ ‘human trafficking,’ and ‘modern slavery’ to be interchangeable umbrella terms that refer to both sex and labor trafficking.”

In presenting the report, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo noted a biblical truth: “Desecration of the inherent value and immeasurable worth of human beings, each of us created in the image of God, makes human trafficking a truly wicked act.”

As Christians know, the Bible clearly states that humans are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27, 9:6) and are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). The Bible also clearly condemns the selling and enslavement of humans (1 Timothy 1:10, Exodus 21:16). Tragically, there have been those in our nation’s and the world’s history who have sought to misuse other Bible verses to provide support for their sin of owning slaves.

Where memories of the slave trade still linger

With the focus on the issue of slavery in our nation’s past, it’s often overlooked that slavery continues in the open in some parts of the world and is a recent memory in others. In some parts of Africa, those memories are recent, upsetting, and very uncomfortable for us today. The BBC published an article by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani titled, “My Nigerian great-grandfather sold slaves.” It’s an interesting but hard read for someone with Western sensibilities. The author notes that “it would be unfair to judge a 19^th century man by 21^st century principles,” but here the difference is in cultural, between developed and developing nations.

Nwaubani explained that slavery was practiced in Nigeria long before Europeans arrived on the continent and was considered acceptable and even celebrated. “The successful sale of adults was considered an exploit for which a man was hailed by praise singers, akin to exploits in wrestling, war, or in hunting animals like the lion,” she shared. European offers to locals of money for the capture or trade of more slaves only served to increase the growth of the practice.

In the late 19^th and early 20th centuries, her grandfather, Nwaubani Ogogo, lived among the Igbo people and owned several slaves who were seized by the British colonial government. She told how Ogogo found this unfair and stood up to the government earning him the respect of both the locals and the British. She recalled hearing stories while growing up of how his agents would capture slaves, selling them through the port cities of Calabar and Bonny in southern Nigeria.

Although the British worked to eliminate slavery throughout the colonial period, the slave trade in southeastern Nigeria continued until the late 1940s or early 1950s. Igbo historian Adiele Afigbo described it “as one of the best kept secrets of the British colonial administration.”

Nwaubani justified her grandfather’s actions, saying he was eventually appointed a paramount chief by the British, engaged in legitimate businesses and trade, and “willingly donated land for missionaries to build churches and schools.”

Describing Ogogo and his peers, she noted, “Assessing the people of Africa’s past by today’s standards would compel us to cast the majority of our heroes as villains, denying us the right to fully celebrate anyone who was not influenced by Western ideology.” Her line of reasoning is similar to what was taught not so very long ago in the majority of public schools about America’s Founding Fathers.

Combatting slavery today

The State Department’s report, released in late June, rates how 188 countries performed in preventing trafficking, protecting victims, and prosecuting traffickers.

Today, Nigeria is on the Tier 2 Watch List. According to the report, the country’s government “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.” There is still a “significant number” of victims of human trafficking in Nigeria and the country has failed to provide evidence of improvement in the last year according to the State Department.

The United States is among 34 countries in Tier 1. Tier 1 countries meet the minimum standards to eliminate trafficking. Tier 2 countries, which include Japan and Saudi Arabia, don’t satisfy the minimum requirements but are making an effort. Tier 3 includes Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Iran, Lesotho, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela among others. For a full list see the TIP Report.

The TIP report proves there are still many places around the world where people think it is fine to own another person. It is equally saddening, however, that there are places in our own country where people think it is fine to traffic another person for sex but fail to equate it with slavery.

“To turn the tide, action must accompany words,” said Pompeo. “Among other steps, governments must end state-sponsored forced labor; they must increase prosecutions of human traffickers; and they should expand their efforts to identify and care for trafficking victims, while ensuring they are not punished for crimes traffickers compelled them to commit.

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We Have Slavery in our Midst – Here’s What You Can Do to Help End It

The following are all true stories. No names have been changed:

• Edie was four when her father died. When Bill moved in, she thought he would be her new Daddy. Instead, he started molesting when she was ten. Bill and her mother owned a butcher shop, and when she was twelve, he started selling her for sex out of the store. On any given day, she might be getting raped in a cooler in the back while customers were buying their dinner out front. If anyone ever noticed the signs of what was happening to her, they never took action.

• Lexie grew up in church. She was coerced into sex at age ten by a seventeen-year-old boy who was a friend of her uncle’s. With divorced parents and a distant father, she craved love and affection. She thought he loved her and that she was his girlfriend. He and her uncle then started selling her for sex to their high school friends at a neighbor’s house. She told her parents what was happening, but they didn’t believe her. She also told her youth pastor, but nothing came out of that either. Her situation continued until the two boys moved on. No one helped her.

• Brook was badly raped at age eleven. She and a friend, who had also been raped, ran away. Before long, they ended up dirty, disheveled, and hungry in a public area. A kindly, clean-cut couple approached them, bought them a meal, and then offered to take them back to their apartment for clean clothes. “We want to help you,” they said. The girls went with them, and before the night was over, Brook had been beaten, threatened, and taken out onto the street as a prostitute.

These are not outlying scenarios. This is the new face of human trafficking – also called modern slavery – in America. It’s happening in our cities, in our suburbs, and even in our schools during lunch and after school hours. And the children involved are getting younger and younger. Sometimes they’re physically held against their will (as in literal chains). Other times they are coerced under threat of harm to themselves or to someone they love. Lexie’s handlers, for example, told her if she didn’t cooperate, they would have her six-year-old sister take her place.

Often the trafficker is known to the child, as in the case of Edie and Lexie. Other times, it’s a predator who knows how to spot a vulnerable target and lure her into his net, the way Brook and her friend were easily eyed and ensnared. Social media has become a veritable hunting ground for children, as grown men posing as “friends” are continually casting for relationships with them online, gradually gaining trust until an opportunity arises to make a move. Another means of entry is the offer of a modeling or acting contract. (Believe it or not, adults fall for this on behalf of their children.) Boys are trafficked too. Studies vary, but estimates say 10-15 percent of trafficked children are boys. And as you can see, women can be complicit or actively involved as perpetrators.

Note also that these things are happening in America, not just “somewhere else.” In 2016, the U.S. led the world as a consumer of commercial sex. Massage parlors, dance clubs, and large-scale gatherings, such as major sporting events or conventions, are supply and demand breeding grounds, and it’s important to know that women of adult age working in legal sex establishments may not be there of their own volition. Some have been trafficked in and are being held under coercion or threat, and of those who weren’t, many still feel trapped because they see no way out. For those whose eyes have been trained to see it, America has become a nation of distributed red-light districts.

Geoffrey Rogers saw it, and in 2011, he left an executive position at IBM to take it on. Together with former major league baseball manager Kevin Malone, he co-founded the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking. He is also president of Ships of Tarshish Films, and Edie’s, Lexie’s, and Brooke’s stories are told in his film, Blind Eyes Opened: The Truth about Sex Trafficking in America. As the title implies, part of its purpose is to help us learn to see the signs of trafficking. That alone makes it important viewing, but it goes well beyond that. Six years in the making, Blind Eyes Opened is packed with information: preventive measures we all can take, what to do in the event we suspect someone is being trafficked, and how we in churches and communities can minister to those who’ve been entangled in this web, past or present.

Although the subject matter is difficult, it’s a beautiful and hopeful film – a full-throated call to the church to engage in this spiritual battle, minister to the wounded, and put an end to this evil in our midst. Blind Eyes Opened will be showing in theaters, one night only, on January 23^rd. Click here to see the trailer, or here for theaters and showtimes. If you can’t make a showing, click here to learn more about how you can join this fight.

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The bloodiest war that the United States ever fought did not take place on a foreign battlefield but raged on American soil, as brother took up arms against brother over the issue of slavery. The war began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861, and ended in the Spring of 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The modest brick structure standing forlornly in a field in central Virginia belies the magnitude of the human tragedy, with an estimated 620,000 killed—almost as many as in all foreign wars combined.

The war led to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. But while the facts of this violent conflict are familiar to students of American history, what is less-known is that the practice of slavery continues unabated. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), every year millions of men, women, and children are the victims of trafficking, which involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel an individual against their will to perform some type of labor or commercial sex act.  The DHS estimates that many billions of dollars per year are generated by human trafficking, which is second only to drug trafficking as the most profitable transnational crime.

Traffickers seek those who are susceptible because of psychological or emotional vulnerability, economic hardship, or in many cases children who are unable to protect themselves against predators.  Doctors Without Borders reports that two-thirds of migrants traveling through Mexico to the United States experience violence, including theft, torture, and rape. As the DHS notes, “The trauma caused by the traffickers can be so great that many may not identify themselves as victims or ask for help.”

Responding to the crisis, President Donald Trump has proclaimed January as “National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.” Referring to human trafficking as “a modern form of slavery,” the president pledged to “actively work to prevent and end this barbaric exploitation of innocent victims.”

The president noted that the lack of an impregnable barrier has enabled traffickers to transport their victims into the United States with virtual impunity. Accordingly, “I have made it a top priority to fully secure our Nation’s Southwest border, including through the continued construction of a physical wall, so that we can stop human trafficking and stem the flow of deadly drugs and criminals into our country.”

Trump refuses to sign a spending bill that does not contain funding for a border wall. Seemingly oblivious to the dangers of an unsecured border, Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) calls a wall “an immorality between countries; it’s an old way of thinking.” U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) agreed, stating: “This president just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis (and) stoke fear.” Meanwhile, in 2018 almost 400,000 people were apprehended after illegally crossing the border.

The battle is also raging in cyberspace, as human traffickers recruit their victims through websites.  In April 2018, the FBI shut down the nation’s largest child-sex trafficking website, Backpage.com. The FBI alleged that Backpage.com encouraged the posting of ads for prostitution and the human trafficking of minors. As a result, Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer was convicted on charges of facilitating prostitution and money laundering.

While the bill signed in April led to the closing of an estimated 87 percent of human trafficking sites, the demand is such that other players in the lucrative online sex-for-hire market have since moved in to fill the void. The software company Marinus Analytics reports that in a one-month period after Backpage.com was shut down, 146,000 online sex ads were posted every day.

The horrors of human trafficking in our day rival the slavery of a bygone era. One can only hope that sufficient numbers of those who possess the determination of an Abraham Lincoln will arise to at long last bring the horrors of human trafficking to an end at a modern-day Appomattox.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact U.S. Senators Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth and your own U.S. Reprsenative to ask them to support federal legislation – including a border wall – to help combat this horrific practice of human trafficking into the United States.

Alternatively, you may phone the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. An operator will connect you directly with the legislative office you request.

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Written by Daniel Horowitz

If Bashar Assad or other Islamic entities came to our border, set up multibillion-dollar global criminal networks sending drugs as powerful as chemical weapons flowing into our country, wouldn’t we treat it like a national emergency on par with a war? Well, take a look at what these violent global entities (still simply known as “drug cartels”) are doing at our border. Breitbart Texas has posted unimaginably gruesome photos of their daily activities. (Warning: extremely graphic.)

Somehow, it’s only cool to care about humanitarian and national security problems of other countries, but not our own or even those of the country just south of us. The reason? Because it implicates the agenda of illegal immigration.

Last week, I caught up with several law enforcement agents who have decades of experience dealing with the southwest border. Here is a synopsis of what a few of them told me of the seriousness of the situation.

Sheriff Mark Napier, who heads local law enforcement in Pima County, the largest border county in America, lamented the callous disregard of the politicians and the media to our border crisis. “This is a human rights issue,” said Napier, who is also vice president of the Arizona Sheriff’s Association. “Unlike Pelosi, who says border walls are immoral, I would say what is immoral is to create a system that encourages some man in Central America to grab his small children by the hand, walk hundreds of miles north through all sorts of climate conditions, environmental hazards, and criminal hazards, and come here believing they could just walk in for a better life. That is the humanitarian tragedy – the system that encourages this very dangerous and desperate behavior that is the problem. By fixing our border, the aliens would know that they can’t come north.”

The media and special interest groups have spent years ignoring the national security threats to Americans while actually fueling the humanitarian crisis for the very migrants that they claim to care about. Now, U.S. House Democrats plan to hold hearings pointing fingers not at themselves, but at Border Patrol for the recent deaths of two child migrants in BP custody. Perhaps the politicians should hear more from border sheriffs rather than special interest groups. Here is what is causing the humanitarian problem, according to Napier.

“My deputies recover over 100 bodies a year in the desert of my county, mostly skeletal remains. This is not the fault of CBP that this child died in their custody; it’s the fault of the system that encouraged that dangerous behavior on the part of that minor’s guardian. I’m not a very political guy, but when you argue against border security, you are incentivizing very dangerous behavior that seems to counter-indicate to me any degree of caring for those people that you profess to care about.”

He expressed a sentiment I’ve heard from many local and federal law enforcement agents who are not trying to score any political points and are driven simply by the dangerous facts on the ground they are confronted with – facts that the political elites want to ignore:

“Long after I’m no longer the sheriff of this county, this county is still my home, and I care about it because my children and grandchildren live here,” said the veteran sheriff. “We’ve got to fix this. I’m so tired of the politics and sound-bite policy. This is not a partisan issue; this is a human rights issue, this is a public safety issue, and a national security issue, which should transcend partisan politics, but unfortunately it does not.”

The frustration at the lack of federal help was also echoed by Mark Dannels, the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, just to the east of Pima County:

Our southern border has become the largest crime zone in America, and law enforcement at all levels work tirelessly every day to secure our border and communities to prevent and detect those that use our border for an avenue to promote illegal activity that degrades our quality of life in America. As the political debate continues, law enforcement deputies/officers/agents will continue to do their constitutional mandates/expectations in securing our borders. I just wish our elected congressional members would do the same.

Inextricably mixed with the humanitarian crisis is the national security crisis posed by the evil cartels. Last week, I had retired Texas Department of Public Safety Captain Jaeson Jones on my podcast. Jones worked for 24 years in the intelligence and counterterrorism division. He now teaches the intelligence community, federal, state, and local law enforcement across the country about border security and Mexican cartels. He warned that cartels such as Jalisco are “now operating in 42 countries” and that “the Mexican cartels are no longer just drug trafficking organizations, they are global violent networks” for a multitude of reasons:

Not only should we treat them as terrorists because they’re operating globally, but because they are also employing terrorist organizations such as FARC to conduct their baseline training. They have killed over 200,000 Mexican citizens since 2007.

Then you take the integration of military-grade weapons such as light antitank weapons, surface-to-air missiles, and hand grenades. The tactics that they’re employing in the tradecraft that they’re gaining from working with terrorists and from special forces units is incredible.

Jones blames not only the media, but even much of federal law enforcement for not adapting their tactics to confront the “quantum leap” the cartels have made from being small-time drug traffickers to violent global entities with endless resources at their disposal.

And no, the violence is not just staying on their side of the border. For those of you asking “why now?” in terms of the urgency at the border, heed the words of this veteran agent:

I can remember a time in this country when we never even heard the term “human trafficking.” That occurred in other countries around the world. … Today it is not only here, it is in every state in this country. We first saw it at the southwest border. I can remember cases when I was stationed in Brownsville, where we had … one of the first cases, I remember, was a woman that was brought in the country, smuggled here through some coyotes by her husband. She was stripped naked and tied up and duct-taped in the back of a car. We were pinging the phone trying to locate her, while they were selling her from Dallas to Houston, putting her into the trade. It was absolutely horrific. I can remember thinking, my God, what is happening? Sadly, now it’s all across the country and not even newsworthy. Now the question is, why did American law enforcement not stop this?

How can we allow this to continue at our own border when we race off and spend billions and endless lives in the Middle East at the drop of a hat, based on a fraction of the security concerns that exist at our border?

Jones lamented the amount of crime from criminal alien networks that is not being quantified in federal data:

Along our southwest border right now the level of cartel infiltration at local and state and federal levels is unbelievable. Look at the kidnappings that are occurring. The extortion, drug trafficking. … To this day at a national level, the American people have no idea how much dope is actually seized in this country. Human trafficking, labor trafficking, money laundering, weapon seizures, cybercrime. I mean the list goes on.

What about those who believe blocking cartel infiltration is somehow not the purview of national defense? U.S. Representative Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said that he opposes any plans to use defense spending for the border because “it is not a responsibility of the Department of Defense” to build the wall, which he considers to be “non-defense purposes.”

Here’s what Jones said about the threat these cartel members pose in our communities:

“When we see these individuals learning the tradecraft of how to utilize armored vehicles and military-grade weapons in two-man, four-man, 10-man tactics … our everyday law enforcement officers domestically are not capable of handling that. That’s not what they train for.”

It’s a shame that establishment Republicans, even those in border states, refuse to recognize the severity of the problem or offer any realistic solutions while criticizing the president. How much longer will they allow this to continue?

This article was originally published at ConservativeReview.com.

Many pro-family leaders are praising the GOP platform for its strong language in a variety of areas. For example, Phyliss Schlafly noted this week in an editorial in the Washington Times that the platform has the successful three-legged stool model that Ronald Reagan won with through strong national defense, economic conservatism and family values. 

One item responsible parents will appreciate is the replacement of language opposing child pornography with a broader call for the enforcement of all laws on obscenity. For years various coalitions have been calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce obscenity laws passed by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Even when John Aschroft, someone whom I greatly admire, was U.S. Attorney General, his actions on this problem were not much better than that of the Clinton Administration under U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. (Not since Bush 41 has any Justice Department done much other than enforcement of child porn laws, although under the Bush 43 administration an increased emphasis on human trafficking began to appear, which is related to our pornographic culture.)

Placement of this broader call to action into the Republican Party platform may help achieve that much needed enforcement if U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is replaced by a different administration.