Human smuggling operations at the border via private planes are increasing, Texas officials warned.
On Tuesday, Texas DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez revealed why this is another outcome of the “open border policies by the federal government.”
“They have allowed this organization to expand a domestic criminal enterprise. So now it’s become a more common occurrence to use planes for smuggling methods. And we were able to disrupt and stop three smuggling attempts by plane within 30 days from three different airports in the Rio Grande Valley,” Olivarez said.
In a statement released by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), it was revealed that human smuggling attempts by aircraft are becoming more common along the US-Mexico border amid the border crisis under the Biden administration.
“These are small, private airports. They’re not using the larger airports where there’s TSA. These are the smaller airports where you don’t have the security measures in place for private planes. It’s kind of hard to do surveillance at every single airport,” he added.
Moreover, Olivarez also disclosed that Houston is becoming a “main hub” for drug trafficking and human smuggling.
According to Olivarez, border officials recently nabbed one of the migrants on a flight who was carrying a fake Texas ID card.
The migrant was later found to have an active warrant out of Wisconsin for the sexual assault of a child.
“Border Patrol helped us out. They were able to identify him by fingerprints. He was a deported felon, and also he had an active warrant out of Wisconsin for sexual assault of a child,” Olivarez continued.
The Texas DPS official claimed that DPS recently discovered and stopped the smuggling of migrants from the Dominican Republic.
“Each of those immigrants told our law enforcement personnel that they paid $11,000 each to be smuggled on a plane,” he added.
Recently, Fox News released a report on the information disclosed by a Customs and Border Protection source, stating that “U.S. officials are aware of at least 599,000 migrants who crossed the southern border and evaded authorities in Fiscal Year 2022.”
Following the report, former President Bill Clinton acknowledged the problem during his recent interview with CNN.
“There is a limit to how many migrants any society can take without severe disruption and assistance, and our system is based much more on an assumption that things would be more normal,” Clinton said.
