Top border official tells Congress shocking details about cartels' migrant-smuggling 'business model'

The then-Chief of the San Diego Sector Border Patrol stated earlier this year that Mexico's cartels have a well-organized business model that is making them huge profits from increased illegal immigration, according to a transcript of the closed-door testimony obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Then-San Diego Sector Chief Aaron Heitke, yes since retired, told the committee on May 9 that cartels in Mexico charged illegal migrants between $8,000 and $20,000, depending on crossing points, according to the transcript. The number of Border Patrol encounters with migrants crossing the southern border illegally exceeded 2.2 million in fiscal year 2022 and 2 million in fiscal year 2023. seconds to federal data.

Such encounters are a cash cow for the cartels, Heitke said.

“It's a business model they use,” Heitke said.

The price of migrant crossings varies depending on whether it is done by land, water or with a large group of hundreds of people, Heitke said.

“So on the ground, right now, to cross our 60 miles of land border, it costs on average about $8,000 per person,” Heitke said, adding that it can cost up to $12,000 per person to cross by land.

“On the water, it's generally $12,000 to $20,000 per person,” he said.

“They also use different ways of managing. So if they have a large group of 200 or 300 people, sometimes they'll only have to pay $400 or $500 per person because it's faster and easier for them to move those people to places,” Heitke said.

Smugglers also control taxi services in Mexico that take migrants to the U.S. border, Heitke said.

“And we also have people who do not necessarily have direct contact with the smuggling organizations. So they can show up from any country, come to Tijuana and talk to people about getting a taxi to the border and they'll be told you're going to cross here,” Heitke said.

“For that cab ride, it might cost $500 or $600. But it's all part of the organizations that move people,” Heitke said.

Deputy Patrolman Dustin Caudle testified before the committee on Sept. 28 that “there is no limit to the techniques and tactics that smugglers will do,” according to the transcript.

“I don't think there are any limits, so we could talk all day about smuggling strategies, but all means are possible. I've seen people in diving gear, you know, trying to go up the river. We've seen, of course, used vehicles with pre-designated pick-up points, remote foot traffic, you know, like I said, the open bombing ranges. So they're going to walk through fields of live fire because they know we can't patrol those areas,” Caudle said of the Yuma, Arizona region, which houses a massive Air Force training ground.

“Again, using the storage house, you know, it's very common. Again, they're looking for that opportunity to move out of the zone, trying to wait for a control point to drop or not have as many DPS patrolling the freeway during that time,” Caudle added.

House Heritage Committee Chairman Mark Green has been investigating The secretary of the Department of National Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, accused him of having been abandoned in his duty in the management of the border crisis. House Republicans like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who reintroduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas for the third time in late November, blame the DHS secretary for the increase in illegal immigration and mass releases of migrants into the country.

“Thanks to Secretary Mayorkas' policies, criminal cartels now exercise unprecedented control over the Southwest border. They have taken advantage of his refusal to enforce the immigration laws passed by Congress, strategically overwhelming U.S. the Border Patrol with illegal crossings in one area so they can push record numbers of people and deadly drugs into another,” Green said in a statement to the DCNF on Monday.

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