A boy cries in a large group of about 3,000 Honduran migrants heading to the U.S. on Jan. 15, 2021, as they walk to the Guatemalan border.
The crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is intensifying, with Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez (D-Fla.) describing it as a “modern-day version of slavery” after witnessing the situation firsthand.
On Sunday (21), Gimenez appeared on Fox News Channel’s “The Next Revolution” to discuss what he saw at the U.S.-Mexico border. He called the situation at the border a “modern version of slavery,” such as the harassment of young women at the border; the indentured servitude of migrants until they can pay to be transported across the border; and the murder of migrants who cannot pay.
Jimenez recalled, “You see, what I see in the CBP facilities are hundreds of children, boys and girls, and I’m talking about boys and girls now, not 17-year-olds, 16-year-olds, I’m really talking about boys and girls, 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds or 7-year-olds, crossing the border on their own. “
“They have little pieces of paper that tell them to call so-and-so and an address. But the problem is that a lot of these girls – young girls – are being molested, maybe as much as 30 percent. It costs their Parents $4,000 to $6,000 to get them taken there.” Jimenez continued, “We estimate that the cartels, the transnational cartels, are making nearly half a billion dollars a month. They use these migrants to move CBP agents out of the way, and then they rush to other unguarded sections of the border, and they bring us drugs and all kinds of other chaos.”
Gimenez added that the border crisis is good for transnational cartels, but terrible for migrants. If they can’t come up with the money, some are murdered on the other side of the border.
Jimenez continued, “They are not only being blackmailed, they are being used. If they cross the border, the cartels will say, ‘Hey, you owe us $6,000. You’re now an indentured servant here in the United States until you pay us back.’ In essence, it’s the modern version of slavery. That’s what’s happening on the border, and it’s outrageous.”
In February, traffickers earned a total of $411.5 million by bringing people from Mexico and Central America to the U.S. border, according to CBP estimates. On average, they earned $14.7 million per day in February.
According to the U.S. Department of health and Human Services (HHS) 2019 data, U.S. taxpayers pay the government about $5 million a day to handle the influx of migrants at the border.
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