The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Human Smuggling At The Border— How This City Became Ground Zero For Migrant Crisis | The Connect

Episode Date: November 25, 2023

Journalist, Luis Chaparro, sat down at the U.S.-Mexico border in Juarez to discuss the current immigration crisis. He explains how Ciudad Juarez has become the number one crossing point for migrants getting into the United States, how criminal organizations AND government officials have profited, and toll it's taken on the citizens on both sides. Go Support Luis! IG: https://www.instagram.com/luiskuryaki/ YouTube: @luischaparro   This Episode Is Brought To You By The Following Sponsor: Get 50% off of Factor at https://www.factormeals.com/connect50 and use code connect50 Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6mc4qAxpztC6D20wzeS91C Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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because that's when it starts getting active and we don't want to be in the way, we don't want to be in the way with cameras with these guys. This week, we went down to El Paso, Texas, to visit our friend Luis Chaparro. He brought us into Ciudad Juarez, took us through the most dangerous neighborhood in one of the most dangerous cities in the world

to show us what was really going on at the U.S.-Mexico border. I think the Mexican institution of immigration is taking probably over 80% of all the rights and the money from migrants and leaving the rest to cartels, right? Migrants worth only as much money as someone's going to pay for them. That's when I see the lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think.

I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on it. Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out a burner, shank. It's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this.

He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. Luis, you're basically a third arm of the show at this point. Yeah, man. We're here, I don't know, sometimes in podcasting, you get a wild hair up your ass. And I, you know, the migrant crisis, the poorest border, it was the biggest story of the year until the attack on Israel on October 7th. Now there's nothing, nothing from Fox. there's nothing from the mainstream media.

So I figured let's come down to the border. Let's do it. So we've got Juarez over here. Yes. We've got just on the other side of this fence, we have New Mexico, and then your hometown, El Paso, Texas, just maybe like three miles in the distance. Yes, this is literally how dynamic the whole border is, right? It's border state but also two countries in the same place.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty surreal because we just drove through, you know, pretty abject poverty. Yeah. And, you know, I'm wearing a fucking Tom Segura podcast t-shirt. And it's all because of our money. Yes.

The value of our money because of our military might after World War II. Yeah. That's the reason we are able to buy all this stuff is because people value our currency more. That's the whole. That's the whole spread. So let's get in it because we don't have a lot of daylight left. So you're from here. This is your, this is home.

Exactly. Yes. I was born here to Al Jarez, and yeah, and just recently moved to El Paso, like not long ago, probably a bit over two years ago. Is that it? Yeah. Wow.

I'm new to El Paso, man. I'm new to the American way of life, you know? Yeah. Well, you, I mean, but you've been a journalist covering cartels and crime for 15 years plus. Yes. So you really escaped with your life, because you were telling me just yesterday or the day before a journalist was killed. Yeah, yeah.

I want a local colleague, Ismael, Villasueur was murder in the streets of Ciudad Juarez. Again, Mexican authorities are saying it was unrelated to his work, right? They said it was a robbery. But if they're always trying to rob you a car. They're just going to put up a gun. You know, it's illegal to carry in Mexico. So they know you don't have a gun. There's no need to put you, you know, like put five bullets in your head, three in your neck.

Yeah. If they're going to fucking rob you, right? That's not a typical mugging. Exactly. It makes no sense, to be honest. What is the situation in Juarez now, today? You know, I remember 2010, 2012. Yeah.

It made international news as one of the most violent places on Earth. Where does it stand today? It is almost going back to those years right now. It's wild because, again, we've been seeing days, probably two weeks ago. We've been seeing days with over 11, 12, 13 murders a day. Back then, that was news, right? That was like, dude,

Ciuduarez is one of the most, if not the most violent city in the world out of a war zone with 13 murders a day. That was a lot. But right now, the thing is, Mexico is so crazy right now with killings, murders, whatever.

That Juarez, even if you have 13 murders a day, it's like, oh, okay, so that's pretty average for a city like that, right? But yeah, it's picking back up, man. It's picking, sadly, it is picking back up. 13 murders, you can't even, at that point, it doesn't really, it's hard to even, like, humanize that. It's just such a ridiculous amount of murders for a city that's like, you know, we were just at Walmart. Yeah.

Two miles away, you know, and there's a bunch of, you know, fat Americans on their phones. And there's already been statistically four people murder in this little town. It's surreal. Exactly. Exactly. When you think about, like, 13 murders a day. You think about like, okay, so that's probably not a lot in a day, but that's every fucking day. So two days, three days, a month.

I mean, compared to Gaza right now, I guess it's not a lot. A lot, right? You mean, name me a higher crime-ridden area, maybe Honduras, maybe, you know, parts of El Salvador. Yeah. But it's not. So what's causing that violence? Tell us who is fighting it out for Juarez right now? Right now, the thing in Juarez is that it's a very fragile situation right now in Juarez.

Back then, before the war, 2010, 2009, you had the Juarez cartel, a single unified cartel with a strong armed branch, right? La Linea. And pardon me, the Juarez cartel, correct me if I'm wrong, that is a legacy cartel or was. Exactly, exactly. And that split off from the original cartel from Sinaloa, Miguel Angelo, Felix, Gaiardo. Which was, they were not, they weren't from Sinaloa, but that was the Guadalajara Federation, right? Right. Both of the main cartels broke from the Guadalajara Federation, right?

And Juarez was one of them. And Juarez was one of them. With Amado Carrillo back in the night is the Lord of the Skies, right? Then, and his family, you know, putting, yeah. So basically when this was happening, Quares was still the main cartel, the only cartel controlling the east border, probably up to Ojinnaga, these towns, you know, on far west, east Texas. And then the Sinaiwa cartel arrived to kind of like own the city, right? They were, they were truzes still working.

Like, hey, Sinaloa, you want to put weight from our border? Then you have to pay a percentage of why you're moving through the city. And that was working perfectly. At some point, El Chapo decided, you know what, we're not going to fucking pay. Let's just own that city. As we own Tijuana, we're trying to own Guadalajara, we're trying to own, you know, other different cities. They try to move in here.

So that started a violent war in the city when it was, you know, called the most dangerous in the world. Right now the thing is that that war kind of like went over. They stopped fighting first because they exterminated each other. There were no more soldiers to kill us. There were a lot of killings. And they also had a truce, right? They like, okay, this is not working for any of us,

not for your cartel, not for mine, not for the Mexican government, not for local businesses, whatever. So they stopped fighting for a good while. I think in 2012, the numbers of killings went down. They really went down to probably three, four mergers a day. And they stay like that. And then we had another peak, 2018, and it's been going on and off, right? Right now what it is happening is the Juarez cartel

split into different smaller factions, right? There's the Juarez cartel, what it's called the old Juarez cartel. And then you have the Nuevo Cartel de Juarez, new Juarez cartel. And then you have La Linea, which still works with the Juarez cartel. Then you have La Empeza,

which is a branch from La Linea working for the new Juarez cartel. And then you will have a local gang which basically was born in Texas prisons,

but they operate in this border in Ciudad Juad Juarez. What are they called? Los Aztecas. Barrio Azteca. Right. They're huge in Texas prisons. Right.

They were basically the armed street gangs working with the Quares cartel. Now they also split. Some of them said like we're gonna work with La Empresa and some others were like we're gonna stay loyal to La Lina. That happened within the Cinawara's cartel only. The Cinelloa Cartel also fractured, right? You have Los Alasar, Los Artistas desinos, Los Mexikles.

Eventually one of these gangs, Los Mexical said, you know what, why don't we actually work with the Juarez cartel? I mean, we're sworn enemies, but you know, Now we can be probably friends. So they try to work with them. So that Mexicalist gang also split. And now you have an old Mexical guard and a new Mexical guard. It's a shit.

What about outside cartels? So you have four local factions of what was the Juarez cartel battling it out. It's chaos. Are there any presence from Sinaloa in the west or remnants of the Gulf cartel from the east? It's just a Sinaloa. Like the factions of the Sinaloa cartel that kind of like stayed here. Yeah. They also started like branching.

So you have all these different gangs also fighting against the other different gangs. And you have a lot of financial presence of the Khalisku New Generation Cartel. They don't have henchmen, they don't have people, you know, in the streets. They just have a lot of money put into Ciudad Juarez through the Juarez cartel. So they broke an alliance to launder a lot of money in this city. because this city has a very dynamic business ecosystem, right? Of course. You have a lot of maikiladores,

you have a bunch of new hotels, a lot of Americans coming back and forth. You have all of that. So the new generation cartel was like, let's just put money into Quetta's. But they're not fighting the streets. All right, so there's multiple criminal operations going on. Obviously, people moving product,

you know, every kind of drug across the border. there's a local drug market, you know? People are buying drugs, coke, fentanyl. There's a lot of addicts in Juarez. Yes, probably the main reason that a cartel wants to fight Juarez, it's not because of trying to get drugs across. It's because of the local market.

So there's enough money to make it worth it to fight out? The local market market is huge. I mean, if you think about Tijuana, probably a biggest border, right? Like they have these huge ports of entry, whatever. The main reason is to get drugs across. especially from Sinaloa. They have a,

they're saying high, whatever. The local market is huge, but it's not as big as Juarez. So what people, what cartels wants to fight in Juarez is the local drug market, right? The local distribution drugs.

Now they're killing a lot of what they call Cristalleros, the guys who are selling crystal meth, right? Because they want to bring back up cocaine. They're like, no, dude, we're going to sell cocaine and heroin.

Stay away from... So they're trying to get back to their roots. Yeah, exactly. Wow. So now they're like trying to find Cristallero. They're putting a lot of intelligence. Like, hey, where the fuck are there with this Chrysalt Math Cell Matt Sellers? And they're killing a bunch of them, including the local police.

They're putting the same work, you know? So by killing, I mean, I assume they probably kill Crystal meth users. Yeah, too. And so what they're saying is you're not hooked on Crystal anymore. Yeah. You're going back to Coke. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or whatever they want, if you want to be out of drugs, whatever, but just don't fucking use Chrysler.

Wow. Now, why is that? that? I mean, there's so much money in crystal meth. Why are they trying to switch back to Coke? I think first, it's cheaper, of course. I mean, you can, you can, you're making way less money from crystal than Coke. The routes of distribution, production, laboratories, all that shit, it's harder to control the whole route, right? From laboratory where is you making, who is making meth, whatever, because there's even people in the US, New Mexico making meth and shipping over back to Juarez and whatever. So, so the cocaine market, it's,

way more controllable. So you want to have control on how much money's going out and in or whatever. So that's what they're hating on the fucking crystal meth. And also, it creates a certain

type of addict that will rob your house, kill for money, you know, carjack you, kidnap you. So yes, that's what they don't want,

these organizations don't want that happening in Quattas, right? Memorial Day weekend is almost here and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first,

big weekend of summer, Total Wine and More is my go-to, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family. I'll grab refreshing beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler. And with everything that goes into summer, it's nice knowing you're getting the lowest prices. Total Wine and More. Your Memorial Day, Made Easy. Shop Total Wine and More, in store or online. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. Luis, every time I have you on, I expect to talk about one thing and then you just blow my mind with something else. I mean, that kind of control, the way that they can shape life, the Mexican criminal organizations, it's, I don't even know what to say sometimes. I mean, I'm living behind, you know, what is still the most powerful law-abiding country in the world.

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We'll show some B-roll of what the old wall was, which is probably like, I don't know, maybe a 20-foot high fence. That's what we call the Obama. Obama's wall, right? Right. He built the wall, but it was that kind of like shitty, smaller, more fragile wall. That's a Democratic Party wall. That's a liberal wall. Next to it is the Republican wall.

That's a Trump wall. Exactly. And that's twice as high. Yeah. And much more sturdy than the iron they use. And it goes five feet onto ground, right? So it's definitely bigger. What is a wall really making?

You know, when you talk to Border Patrol, whatever, they know that this is not going to stop anyone. But what they see is that's going to win us some time to get there, catch these guys. So they don't run us free, whatever. But what is making for criminal organizations to it, they're just making... This wall is the best thing that ever happened to fucking cartels.

Because now they're charging shit tons of money because of that, right? Because it's harder. Because it's harder. Exactly. Because before, all of this was just like chicken fence, right? Right. This really fragile, small, super... It was about my size, you know, the whole wall.

The whole wall. It wasn't a wall. They took the average height of a Mexican man. And it's like, that's it. Five foot eight. We'll get to cap it at that. Exactly, dude. So right there, in that area right there, it's called Lanapra, one of the toughest neighborhoods in Juarez, right?

Probably even in Mexico. So we're, for people that can't see, we're, I mean, how far is that? A mile? I mean, we're basically. It's probably less than a mile. We're looking down at one of the neighborhoods that is probably responsible for most of the bodies, the 13 murders a day. Exactly. They happen right there.

Yes, right here. Here, here, this is a, this is a very complex place, right? Because it's in the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. Yeah. And if you drive through it, you'll have one paved road, kind of like paved, right? It's shitty pavement, but still it's paved. All of the side roads, it's just dirt roads. And it's been like that forever.

And that is because of the cartels that operate in this area. They don't want pavement because they own, you know, four by four pickup trucks, whatever. And whenever the police tries to show up, they're going to need some, you know, they need to know the terrain. They're going to be stopped. in some places. It's harder for them to chase. Exactly. So they want to keep it like that.

Okay. I'm honestly a little surprised being here. You know, we've all, we saw the Elon Musk video where he's, you know, at that border crossing where literally it's hundreds of people an hour are just walking through. They're asylum seekers. Let's unravel this. Yes. You know, there's, the truth usually lies in the middle. Yeah.

What is the situation today? I haven't seen one migrant. one migrant. I haven't seen one. So clearly this isn't the most porous crossing on the U.S.-Mexico border. What now, for people seeking asylum, what is the major crossing point? It is still El Paso. It is El Paso and a port in, well, it's not a port. But where is it, though? It's right down there. You'll definitely see more people pouring in, you know? Not a lot. It went down probably two months ago, but during summer did, this was absolutely crazy. And again, most of those guys are asylum seekers.

They're not trying what they, the US Border Patrol call getaways. They're not getaways. They're trying to turn themselves over to Border Patrol to start or begin their political asylum process, right? The USS, they have a system. They have CVP1 app so you can use your phone, wait in Mexico, happy with a margarita for your fucking asylum, whatever, hearing. But hang on.

What we're told now is there actually. when they line up, they give them a court date and say, see you later, and they actually let them in now. That's a new Biden policy that's very controversial. That is the thing. How much of that is true? Like, is that really happening? It is happening. Mostly with family units or with women and children, right? Mostly. Some, you know, solo adults will get that benefit too. But that is the exactly thing. The Biden administration probably has the best intentions, intentions, good ideas. Let's put up an app. Let's have these people here waiting for the court is whatever. But on the ground, it's not working. There is not a system in place. So places like El Paso

and Juarez become a shit show. There's people confused all over. Shelters packed. People trying to jump the wall. People trying to go under. People falling in their hands of coyotes. you know smugglers that says, hey dude, you know, you're not going to get a fucking curdie. But if you pay me seven grand, I can get you across. And then you wait for your court day already in the U.S.

because there's no way. So everything you see in the news back and forward, liberal and conservative, everything is happening. It's actually happening. Both sides, right? There's a lot of them getting released in the streets of El Paso.

Overwhelming in El Paso. But there's also a lot of them just getting sent back to Mexico, overwhelming Mexican authorities. What it depends? No one fucking. Not even the migrants, attorneys, authorities, no one fucking knows, dude. So when a shelter gets overrun in Juarez, will they try to kick them across?

What they do is just, they just, you know, let them out on the streets. And that was that, yeah. Are authorities in Mexico working with cartels to help migrants come through? Or to help illegal immigrants? How do you want to term? The official thing is that working with the Biden administration to stop the flux of migrants going in through Mexico. So this wall now is moving now to the Mexican southern border, right? To Chiapas.

That's where a human fucking wall is, right? So Mexico deployed a lot of people from the Instituto Nacional de Migration, the Mexican Institute of Immigration, to Chappas to stop people from coming to the northern border, right? The thing is, what are you going to happen when you send a lot of people on the most corrupt institution in Mexico? Even more than the fucking local police This is the most corrupt institution

In the whole fucking country The border patrol? The Mexican immigration Wow, I had no idea Even more than federallies? Dude, it's widely That they do These guys have institutionalized corruption

That's on their fucking constitution They're extorting migrants They're sending them back to smugglers They're sending them to fucking cartels They're putting In Juarez It was recently, Pat, I think it was in March, there was a huge fire in one of these detention centers.

40, over 40 people, migrants died in this fire. They were there, not because they were, you know, doing someone illegal, whatever. Some of them even had to permit to be legally in Mexico. They were there because they didn't pay a bribe to the Mexican Institute of Immigration. They were locked there, the guy with a key, went home, had a good fucking coffee back home,

we was watching a movie, while these guys were burning inside these detention center, right? So this is exactly what is happening. Again, part of that money is... So the Mexican authorities are completely in on it. They're completely, everybody's getting money out of the migrant crisis. I think the Mexican institution of immigration is taking probably over 80% of all the bribes and the money from migrants and leaving the rest to cartels, right?

Well, I guess my question is, do you think they're working in tandem? Let's back up for a second, because we're going to get to that. Yeah. So you have the political asylum seekers, right? People fleeing violence. What do you think right now is the country with the most out-migration trying to get into the U.S.? Venezuela? Yes.

Yeah. For all that makes sense. What about Africa? It is why, but it's less than 10%, you know, all across borders. Right. There are a lot of, like, people from Africa. But it's probably not even 10% of a lot. Okay, okay.

And then, you know, Hamas cells, Hezbollah sells. Yeah. I don't believe it. What's your take on it? I mean, there has been cases. I mean, we're going to stay like, stick to the truth. You can say it's not happening. It's not happening systematically.

You know, it's not happening a lot. But it has happened. Mexico has found terrorist cells embedded with migrant caravans and with migrants trying to pour in one or two every one or two years

they are trying to use these routes now the difference is most of these guys they do have money right they do have a buckup a bucket of a criminal organization or a terrorist organization so most of these guys will not try to go across

on the border wall or tunnels or whatever They go straight to the ports of entry with fake identities. Yeah. Yeah. And their goal is to get into the US and commit a terrorist act. I think what they really want to do is to gather information, right? Because most of the terrorist attacks that we've seen in the past in the US are within the US.

Like sales formed within what they call domestic terrorism, right? And yeah, so most of these guys will probably just try to go in to gather info, keep sending info on, you know. Yeah. So you have that element of the immigration crisis, migrants, asylum seekers. Then you just have your getaways, right? Whether that is people seeking asylum or it's just people that want to come here from the central Mexico, right? Down the street that want to escape poverty, whatever, they want to work.

What do you think now is the percentage of migrants versus illegal immigrants? I think right now it's definitely way more migrant-seekers. political asylum, but this is a thing, again, you can't count what you can see, right? You don't know what the number is of the people that is getting away because they're getting away, so you don't have that number. And when you have a border like this where you don't have a system and it's overwhelmed and both cities are overwhelmed, how much attention are going to put into those getaways, right?

So this is fun time for Gertels and for everybody who wants to get across, right? Right. Not even because not even because the Border Patrol is not doing their job or whatever. It's because this is a fucking shit show. There's a lot of people going back and forth. A lot of confusion,

a lot of different people from different countries. While cartels are like cashing in. So like, hey, dude, we have routes. We have the means to get you across and we don't care where you're coming from. We don't give a shit. We'll just... And what's the scale of the rate to get across?

You were telling me earlier, there's a low end for like just the basic service. And then there's like the deluxe package. Yeah, exactly. So basically the low, low end will be someone who's just trying to get across into a pass, literally. They don't want any ride to whatever. They just like, I just need to get across these wall, right? For that, they will charge you five grand, $5,000, $5,000 just to get you across the border. Yeah. There's different packages, right? Well, I want to be moved more into New Mexico, to Albuquerque, past the checkpoints, right? Well, that's going to be probably $8 to $10,000, $1,000. If you want to go through a tunnel, We can get you through a tunnel going out on the sewer system in El Paso. Hold on. They have those?

They have a bunch of those, yes. Okay. Oh my God. Tell us about this. Do they use the drug tunnels in tandem with migrant tunnels or is it a separate? What they would use is the watering system for the Rio Grande, right? From the river that splits Mexico and the U.S. You have watering system so it doesn't overflows when it rains.

Right? So you have these what we call compuartas, which are basically, what are called, gates? Yeah. That they open and release water into a sewer system and whatever so it doesn't get flooded. Right. So they use those.

They open these gates underneath the ground. I assume they're in collusion with like the city workers or whoever controls that. Sometimes, but it's not hard. I mean, if we drive by and we hide for a while,

no one sees us, the gates are right there, right? And they're easy to open. They're not, some problems that are probably properly closed. Sometimes it's just fucking dig a hole. Whatever.

they just go underneath and come out of the sewer system downtown El Paso, right? There's been videos shared in social media where just like on a red light and then a fucking sewer open a bunch of people

coming out of that, you know? But that's expensive because they have to use and that's more secure, right? Right. You have more chances to make it if you go through these sewer system, whatever.

What's the most expensive way? Now the most expensive way will be something around 200,000, which is probably it's like... 200,000 pesos, is that what you just said? 200,000 pesos?

So maybe 15, 20,000 dollars? No, no, it's definitely way more, so it's not 200,000 pesos. It should be around like 50 grand, US grant, right? Like 50,000 euros dollars around. Wow. That will get you literally an American passport properly printed at a consulate, right?

A real passport. A real fucking passport, your name on it. It will pass the black, like whatever. But that doesn't really depend on, like, otherwise, everybody will just put together 50,000, right? Really depends on who you know. You need to know someone who is on these. Can I get a new identity?

Like I have, let's say I have 50 grand. You're connected. Can we go get me a new American passport? It will take a couple of days. Yeah. But yes, there is an underground marketplace for all of these shit, right, handled by people on WhatsApp groups. They don't give access to everyone.

Yeah. you need to be connected. And then you literally, there's someone, you know, offering passports, visas, tourist visas, whatever. New identities, that certificates, credit certificates. So obviously there's Americans in the American consulates in Mexico who are being paid by the cartels to print these things. How organized is the smuggling? And clearly it's pretty sophisticated, but compared to drug trafficking. trafficking, how organized are the cartels now in human smuggling?

That's what I was trying to tell you, because I forgot, we're right next to Annapara, right? Before the whole fucking wild, before the whole fucking, you know, politicized immigration talks, you only had chicken fence. So the whole operation of smuggling people in was handled by mom and pop living in this neighborhood, right? No one was really interested in that business because you weren't really making that much money, right? You will make probably 50 bucks for a whole family. You know, I'll just give you 50 bucks and I'll, yeah, I'll help you across.

I'll put, you know, put a step or whatever, yeah. 50 bucks to just step on my hands. Step on my hand, get across and boom, off you go. People on the U.S. side of the border, these houses, churches, whatever, in New Mexico, they will have these guys, right? They'll be like, yeah, stay here. Well, the Border Patrol goes away.

There was no, not a lot of Border Patrol, not a lot of cameras, probably no cameras, no sensors, whatever. It was people going back and forth. There were people just literally coming into the U.S., working for the audacious, going back to Juarez, and then back again. There's different dynamics.

When this started picking up, it was probably the biggest spike I saw of prices was right when Donald Trump became president. Why? Because they assumed... Because his whole speech was against Mexican, against immigration. It was talking about closing the wall,

like literally closing the wall, a lot of shit. So these guys banked on that. It's like, oh, this is your last chance before Donald Trump, you know, steps in and builds his fucking wall. So now it's going to be twice the money. He's like a CEO who makes an announcement and a stock goes up.

Literally like that. So that started making a lot of money to these guys. Now when he changed the wall, well, Obama changed the wall first before he left office, right? They're like, you see, these walls are already starting. That's going to be, you know, even worse, eventually, whatever.

They started like banking all that. But eventually, they said, They started making so much money with the huge waves of migrants from South America. Back then, it was probably mostly Mexican, 95% Mexican just trying to get across to work. Then with the whole crisis in Venezuela, Ecuador, Haiti, Cuba, will all these new influences of different migrants coming to the border? That's when things really changed. That's where there was a lot of money to be made, even to stash them, even to give them a proper place to stay,

to offer them different packages, etc., etc., etc., cartels started making, well, not cartels back then, these mom and pops started making big money, right? They started charging $2,000, $3,000, $3,000, $4,000, $4,000. There was a point where cartels were like, wait, wait, wait, you're making a lot of fucking money.

No, that money, you know what? We need 50% of that cut coming to us. So they started paying what they call Piso, right? So they just started off taxing it. First, faxing, taxing, taxing. And then we're like, no, you know what? This is a lot of fucking money to be made. We're taking over.

They started killing a lot of fucking local smugglers that were not working with them, right? I used to know these two brothers from Annapra. They were working even before the chicken fence, whatever. Then the cartel showed up. They started paying their tax. And then when the cartels said, like, no, now you work for us, right?

The Juarez cartel, La Linea, was like, no, you work for us now. They were working for them, but also putting some work on the side, some side gigs, you know, putting people. When they learned, they killed them both. They murder him, murder them here in the app. And do they make it public?

Yes. You know, they must, right? How does, in the digital age, when they need to send a message, are they, you know, putting it on TikTok, are they putting it, how are they sending the message to the community that you guys work for us now? The simplest way that there is, using the news, local news, right? They wouldn't even call local news. That would just leave the body there, make sure that the police wouldn't come.

come up and peek the body, whatever, but before half the news there. You know, like there was a killing, they prefer a killing, whatever film. A local report would go, shoot photos, make a video piece forever for the night. Okay, so clearly that all logically makes sense. You know, it's post-9-11, making it really hard to get across, mixed with just demand, went way up. Of course they got their hands on it. So how does that look now?

How would, you know, who are the big, you know, the four groups that are killing each other, you know, day in and day out and Juarez, are they also battling it out for migrant routes? Or is it the legacy cartels that are much more embedded in legitimate society that are doing the human smuggling? Yeah, exactly. Who's doing it? Who's killing it right now? It is exactly what you said. Like the Juarez cartel, La Lina, and the guys aligned with these levels. Legacy cartel, local cartel, for the most, probably over 90% of the whole human smuggling operations is handled by them.

Not only because of that, but also not because they've been here, you know, making their ways in society, wherever more, before the Sinola cartel or whatever. But also because, remember I told you about the Barrio Azteca that was born on that side of the border. So they do have tentacles and people working on that side of the border, right? So that gave them an advantage. They're like, no, we're not going to put in Mexicans, you know, bringing people, also taking people all the way up to Albuquerque or whatever. We're just going to use Americans to do that job. Right. Yeah, and now you have a lot of Americans, right, whether they're Mexican Americans or white Americans who, just like drugs now, they're basically, the Mexican cartels are getting them wholesale just across the border and then they are doing the rest.

Yeah, exactly. Wow. Fascinating. So you would say this port of the world. of entry in the Juarez cartel in the in the human smuggling game right now is killing it harder than any of the other I guess it is cartels in Mexico yeah I think it's it's literally at the same level of what is happening is Texas right in Matamortamolipas all that area with the golf cartel right those guys are also like dude making a ton of money right and yes getting a lot of like yes

and then on the west you know you got to imagine the San Diego Tijuana crossing, you've got to imagine that Sinaloa, I mean, they've got to have their hands in that a little bit. Yeah, exactly. That is Sinaloa. That is probably a bit more sider, right? A bit more up? Tider in control, you know?

They're still pushing a lot of migrants. They're still, the human smuggling shit still huge in San Diego, Tijuana area, but probably not as big as here, because Tijuana, specifically Tijuana San Diego, is probably the biggest rock corridor in the whole border. Right. So that's a different game, right? That's like 80% of the fentanyl, you know, it's getting across from that border, you know? So what does that have to do?

Do they not want to mix rampant human smuggling with their drug corridor? Yeah, they know that. Yeah, they know that that could bring a lot of heat to their already established drug routes, right? They could lose that. So they're trying to move all of that to other places, like on the Mexicali Valley, right? Tolexico, San Luis Rio Colorado, Algodones. In between Arizona. Plus, there's so much more land here.

Exactly. So tell us, give us, like, from the stories you heard and the people you talk to, give us like a good example of like how they would move, forget about the migrants for a second, how they would move a caravan full of getaways, you know, illegal crossings. How would the Juarez cartel do that? First, they have lookouts on the outskirts of the city, right? Most of them are getting here on buses.

So they have a lot of people in the bus station, local bus station, looking and of course, like, targeting people that look like migrants. Right. You know, they have like this shitty backpack and they have the looks, you know. So they're like, okay, you're a migrant. Come over. Hey, dude, there is no way you're going to move on your own in the city. We own the city.

So starting now, you're going to work with us, you know? So we're going to take you to somewhere place, somewhere safe, whatever, safe, you know, safe as a safe house, you know, that's for migrants that, are coming over to the city without an established route. Oh, interesting. So they're picking up business at the border. At the border. Or at the crossings.

None of the crossings, but literally where the bus station comes from other places in Mexico, right? Okay, but is that, I want to start at the beginning of the chain. Is that, say the bus that's coming up, it's a group of migrants from Central America, Venezuela, they make it through different checkpoints. Yeah, they make it through different checkpoints. Is that also a route controlled by cartels?

And who's controlling that route? Exactly. So yeah, exactly. So, yeah, if you have Central Americans, most Central Americans, are already under a network of criminal organizations all the way from Venezuela, right? Okay. So they will hire someone there who is well connected all up until this point, right? Right.

So they will pay half there. That will ensure them they get across Mexican checkpoints, right? even though the Mexican incident of immigration, they will still try to extort them. Of course. No, but I already pay these guys, whatever. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Those are criminals. We are the authority. Have to pay. So they still have to pay more. And then these criminals, imagine you're from Venezuela, you have no fucking clue about Mexico and routes and countries and states, you know, whatever. So these criminals are

giving directions through phone, right? So now you're going to be in Takatecas, and then Durango, and then Chihuahua and then Ciudat Juarez, and someone's going to greet you in Seattle Juarez, right? No, no, is somebody in Sierra Juarez actually connected to somebody all the way in Venezuela?

These networks, this is the Internet era, right? It is not hard to coordinate full teams and full networks from Juarez all the way to Venezuela, all the way to Caracas or whatever, right? All through all these different countries. You have a huge network, and it only takes for you to go on one of these WhatsApp groups where they coordinated the whole shit, right?

They're like, if you need water, go to the store, right across the Daven Gap. The Deerban Gap, look for Dona Lupita. You have to pay her. There's a whole fucking network of the organs. I imagine this involves hundreds, if not thousands of people.

I was in the Davengap, which is this bottleneck between Colombia and Panama. I can't remember the year, but some of you guys probably remember when the whole meta system, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, shut off.

The servers were out. Wow. No service all through Latin America. So these whole networks run on WhatsApp. So I was literally there in the middle of the jungle where they were departing a lot of trips because they build this huge group of people, you know? So they're like, okay, group one, go.

Group two, you're going to go on a boat through the river, whatever. Boom, go. Group four, you're going to go with these armed people, henchmen, whatever, they're going to grab you. This is like modern-day Native American scouts that could take you through, you know, The first route, depending on how much you're paying.

Yeah, exactly. So they were moving people like that. The way to confirm that they paid was through WhatsApp, right? Because they were like, hey, do you have your family member, whatever, whoever's going to make that deposit in Venezuela or in Cuba, whatever? They're like, yeah, yeah. They already made the deposit. Yeah, ask them to send me the receipt.

They send the receipt through WhatsApp. He gets the receipt. It's like, okay, so this group is good to go. They're already paid. When the whole fucking system shut down, the whole operation shut down. Right. It was like, boom, so no one's going to move. No, I still have everyone who said, no, they already paid.

They call me the phone. I can't get in touch with them. No one knew what was happening, right? We're like, oh shit, we lost sign up. No one has, like reception here, but it's happening. Those guys are, well, no ticket, no fucking right, dude, so you're going to stay put. And they're like, dude, but we need to move. They're expecting us.

They're already paid. Oh, they're scamming us. It was a fucking huge mess because migrants were angry. We were like, my family already paid? Yeah. He's like, but I'm not getting confirmation. I have no reception. so you're not moving.

The whole operation shot down for a couple of hours. After a couple of hours and reception went back, they started getting the receipts. Bing, bing, bing, they're like, okay, shipping people over. So, but if you get, if something fucks up, and you're in the middle of the Darien Gap, which is like the last frontier, I mean, armies can't penetrate it.

It's just thick thousands of miles of forest and jungle. Will they just stop you and turn you back? If you don't have the money, No, they will keep you and ask for ransom, right? They will keep you and ask your families for like, I have your family here, whatever, you need to pay or else, you know. Oh, so they might just kill you right there. Dude, yes.

So do they not have a problem with killing people if, you know, something goes wrong in the chain? Dude, migrants are merchandise right now. They're not humans for these guys, right? They're literally merchandise. They're money. So they're like, okay, so these money, migrants worth only as much money as someone's going to pay for them.

No one's going to pay for that migrant? Let's fucking kill them. It sounds like slavery. It sounds like almost like the Atlantic slave trade or something. Literally, dude. If you go to the local cemetery here in Quinas, I was just there, there is a bunch, a bunch of unidentified buddies there. Most of them are migrants that were killed or just died from the heat or whatever. Right. Yeah. A lot of migrants dying there. No one's claiming their buddies. So they're just buried in their ground with a stick and a number, you know? One zero four or whatever.

What about like the sex trafficking element? You know, that kind of was a conservative talking point a little bit. You know, there was a lot of like Q&on, you know, bullshit. Some of it's not though. Some of it is true. There is something to, you know, young women that get kidnapped or children that are kidnapped trying to get to America, migrants, and then sold into like underground trafficking networks.

trafficking networks. Tell us about that. This is the hardest part. I do not have evidence of that, not because it's not happening. A lot of U.S. sources I have and a lot of Mexican sources, they do know that it is happening, right? The hardest part to get evidence on how it's working, how much money to make it, all of stuff is, it is hard to tell when it's human smuggling and when it's human trafficking, right? It is really hard to tell because most of these girls or boys or whatever, they don't need to be. even know. They're paying. They're even paying to get smuggled in. They don't even know they're going to end up in the hands of a trafficker, right? Well, something is, something is sinister and evil as, like,

child, you know, kidnapping a 10-year-old child to sell them to, like, you know, into sexual slavery. You know, Mexican cartels, obviously not known for their morals, but, you know, you guys love kids. Mexicans love kids. Do you think established cartels would put up with that? Do you, like, In your estimation, is it, you know, small underground networks of people doing that? Or are the big cartels also involved in that? That's a difficult thing to understand when I was researching, you know, for a story on sex trafficking that I didn't put out because I didn't find any evidence. There's the thing. I started talking to different cartels, different people that have known for a while.

probably nine out of ten they said like dude I have no clue I've never heard of that happening here I've never heard of these organizations doing that some others were like absolutely no this is not something we do but one guy probably from Sinaloa he said like no yeah I know the organization does that kind of stuff but that's other people that's another faction

that's someone like you know nobody wants to admit it that's real bad PR they are you know like we got to take into account also that not everything that is happening in the criminal world, like sex trafficking, arms trafficking, all that stuff, it has to do with cartels.

There is a lot of that stuff happening with Mexican authorities, right? A lot of Mexican state police is involved in sex trafficking, in sex rings, in arms trafficking. Most of these passports, identifications, that's coming out of, you know,

Mexican officials and the money is for them. These marketplaces where I'm in, you know, that I'm checking it right now, I'm going to put out a story soon, most of these marketplaces where you can find from exotic animals to, you know, bombs, a lot of crazy fucking shit. They are run by Mexican state officials, right? The administrators of the groups are Mexican state officials. Yeah. So they do have these technology to live track your location. I just told you about, like, how I asked some of my contacts, like, I can.

and you pin me this guy. They're renting that service to cartels. But the ones managing that operation, when let's say you are a cartel member, whatever, you want to find a rival or you want to find a charles like me, you're going to call these guys. It's like, hey, dude, how much for a location for these guy?

And he's going to charge you 50,000 pesos. Wow. They'll even give you the price to put charges against someone. It's like, what charge do you want to put him? I don't know, dude, like drug trafficking. All right, all good. They'll put up a checkpoint, grab these guys.

They're like, oh, you were sought after for drug smuggling. It's like, dude, here's the charges. They'll take him into a judge. The judge will see your case. They're like, yes, dude, 20 fuck your years of prison, 30 fucking years of prison. And that will cost you 50,000 pesos. Which is nothing.

$2,000? $2,000? Yes, literally, dude, to put someone in jail. So again. And I assume there's a price to get somebody killed, too. These cops are known trigger men. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, on these marketplaces, I haven't seen yet, you know, the killings.

I don't know if they have different marketplaces for that. Well, even probably just for, you know, cartel members. Exactly. Right. They call up their button men who are the cops. But it's like they have menus. Exactly. With different. And then again, a lot of these, the underworld, you know, thing, it's handled by Mexican officials.

So sometimes cartels are like, we don't fucking kidnap. And then the rival goes, I was like, we're not kidnapping. It's you. At the end of the fucking government. who's making the kidnaps and asking for rents them. And that makes total sense because why do you need to kidnap migrants? They're paying. They're paying customers.

We're moving them through. So the people that are doing the kidnapping. Yes. Whenever someone, whenever a member of the press, this is why we are uncomfortable for these guys, right? For Mexican officials and not even for cartels. Cartels know what they're doing. They'll just, you know, if you show up to a safe house,

they'll say like, what the fuck are you doing here? Just get the fuck out. Don't publish that story. Give me your camera. wherever, get a forgot away from here. They'll just keep going, right? But whenever there is an operation, because they will kidnap migrants,

Mexican officials will kidnap migrants on official vehicles, dressed as proper police, whatever, whenever they show up and you somehow, someone tips you off and say like, hey, there's an operation to rescue migrants, right? They're not going to rescue them. It's going to move into a different bodega,

to a different warehouse, away from cartels. Most of my sources here in Juarez in this neighborhood that work for the Juarez cartel, they're like, dude, the fucking state police the fucking worst. They're stealing migrants from us.

Oh, my God. We're storing them to get them across. It's like their kilos of coke. They're jacking them. They're jacking the migrants and asking ransom. But if a member of the president is there, they will say, like, we rescue these migrants from these fuckers that have them kidnapped, whatever.

That's not true. You know the term gaslighting? That is very, yeah, exactly. Mexico is one giant gaslight. Dude, yes. You never know the truth. A hundred percent. There is a game of mirrors.

Now, great. Now we're in Juarez. We've just come from Venezuela. We've made it across the Darien Gap. We've gone through Central America. Made it through all these Mexican checkpoints. The routes probably spent 30 grand. That's easy to assume, right?

Now, how does it work? Show us how big are the caravans? Or how big are these groups they move at a time? Usually, they move in. to caravans all the way up to probably Mexico City. After that, they start splitting into smaller numbers, right? Ten, five? Ten, twenty, even thirty, you know, groups moving on different routes. Some of them are going to go to Tijuana, some of them are going to go to Tamaulipa. Do they have a choice which port of entry?

I think that's a smuggler all the way back from where they come, right? It depends on the network that captures them, right? So they're going to tell them, you go to Zaka, Durango, and Juarez. Or are you going to go Sinaloa and then Tijuana? Or are you going to go the other way, right? When they get here, on these neighborhoods, probably, yes, most of them are in this neighborhood, they will have a lot of stash houses. So you will gather a group of 10, then a group of another 10, and then a group of five, and then in a different house, another 30, whatever, you're going to store them while someone, one of the lookouts, that's also, yes, that's also rings my bell. We probably need to move here before dark because that's when it starts

getting active and we don't want to be in the way, we don't want to be in the way with cameras with these guys. Right. Lookouts are always along along these border. Okay. So when it starts to get dark, lookouts will start taking their positions. Okay.

Because we still have all these road to go out and all that highway and murder. Yeah. We need to get across an app. Okay. We're wrapping like 20 because I look like a walking big bird. Yeah. With this, yeah.

Yeah. We'd get out of here. Exactly. So yeah, you have a lot of like lucaps, right? Looking across the border, looking for the Border Patrol movement and whatever. Whenever they have a chance,

whenever they see a chance, that will just move people. But so how, though? Jump and put them over the wall? Some of them will jump through that wall when the train passes, right? If the train comes along, you see those two or three Border Patrol pickup trucks were there? Yes. So they will get on that side of the train tracks.

Right. The train will give them enough time to get across that border. Oh, so the train works as like a, it blocks them. It blocks their view. They will jump and they will try to run through the mountain, right? Right. Some of them will get caught, some of them not. Some of the migrants that they don't pay, they pay less money.

They're going to be what they call, what they called ansoelos, right? What do they call these? Ansuelos, no say. What you send it to, like the fisherman uses the catch features? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, tackle, it's, what I don't know. Basically these tractors, right? They will send them to get them apprehended. Oh, bait.

Bait. Bait, right? Yeah. So they will send them over, they will be captured while the bigger group is going to actually make it make a cross. Just like they would do with a drug load. Now you have that mountain. Of course, the border wall can't climb up that mountain. Right. It's really rough. Right. To put the border wall up with the mountain. So some of them will just walk all the way to the top of the mountain, stay there for a couple of hours. And when they feel there is a chance,

that will just go. Now, are they escorted? Once they make it over the fence, is there an escort? No, it's all phone. Oh, wow. Okay. Or they say like, you know what, just go straight. There's going to be a house. And in that house, there's going to be these guy on a white SUV, whatever. jump in and off you go. Usually a guy's going to be an American, right? So we could be looking at a house, stashing a bunch of migrants right now, waiting for the signal. So as soon as it's getting darker, you're going to see more activity. That's why you see more water patrol right there.

That checkpoint was not there where we're driving, right? Yeah. So like we found out, you know, getting to know you, the way that the drug trade has decentralized. especially with Sinaloa, right? It's everybody is, people are basically no longer on payroll. Everybody is contracted out. Yeah.

You own the trucking company, so you're paid to transport to the border. You are the mule, paid to get it across. We give it to you, bye-bye. Does the same hold true with human smuggling? Exactly. So the people that, you know, where the migrants are hidden right there, could just be, you know, a family that wants to make money and they loan their house out to the cartel, to stash, etc.

And that's the same goes for all the network all through Central and South America, right? Okay. So you have a Venezuelan gang and they're going to make money just to put them out of Venezuela and into the next country. Then you have a next gang and they're going to make money out of them. So it's a whole horizontal network operating right here. It seems even more flattened than the drug game. Than the drugs, yes. Because, you know, if, because Mayo, honestly,

Aloa has his he has pull at the southern border. He, the Sinaloa cartel, if there is a lot, you know, a ton of Coke that crosses the Guatemalan border into Mexico, they control it, they have people paid off, they have it controlled all the way to the border. Exactly. It doesn't sound like, it doesn't sound like human smuggling is that. They don't have a grip on it like that.

No, it's different, different small cells, right? that are charging right there through their turf, and then you move to the next one. And every cell has a fee. Yeah, exactly. Every cell has a fee. Okay. So, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came down here.

You know, every politician has basically come down here. They had their different takes. You know, they say that the cartel now is marketing the cartel, whatever the fuck that means, right? Yeah. You know, the brands are marketing all over the world. letting people know, I don't know how they put their marketing out online, letting people know this is the process. We will put you on a plane, get you to Mexico City, you'll be taking, you'll immediately be met by somebody from the organization,

given the proper paperwork, put on a domestic flight to the border and then moved across. I found that fascinating. What do you think? How true is that? That could be very well true, man, yes. I mean, it is it, it is a very well true, man. Yes, I mean, it operates like that. Again, where... That sounds like the Sinaloa move. Yeah, I mean... That's a very white collar.

Could even be Cartel del Golfo or the Quarterscarsal. It just depends on who you know and where is that people you know, right? If you don't know anyone in Africa, then you're probably not going to get Africans on your network, right? But if you know someone, if you're like, oh, you know what? Some African gang says, like, you know what, I'm selling arms or they're using these route. I know a guy from Sinaloa or now I got from the Juarez cartel, whatever. I did. Or even I know someone from the Mexican government in Mexico City that is corrupt, you know.

So it's going to help me out in Mexico City. But that guy in Mexico City knows someone from Sinaloa or someone from the Gulf Cartel, right? So it's different horizontal networks that will just pass along and make money, you know. It's a world of brokers, right? It's criminal fucking brokerage around the world. So it's not a hard to think. I see it's not hard to think that your tennis shoes are coming from China. all the way to whatever they need to be in Juarez, you know?

Yeah, it's the invisible hand. Like, it seems like this big giant conspiracy, you know, as official as, you know, the CIA. But it's just, it's just gangs getting money. At the end of the day, it's just everybody's shaking and moving. Yeah, they make it look at the Sinaloa cartel has people on their payroll everywhere, you know. It's super organized. It's not that organized. It's just, you know, decentralized.

It's guys with contacts. Yes, exactly. And he's got contacts, and he's got contacts. And that's capitalism. Exactly, dude. You can't see it. It's the invisible hand. 100%.

Imagine you are in, I don't know, dude, like Africa, you're a gang leader making some good bucks. But someone tells you, hey, dude, I can help you all putting people in Mexico, in Mexico city, and you can easily earn, you know, a couple thousand per each. You're going to say like, fuck yes, dude. Let's get that rolling, you know? I need somewhere there. And then, yeah.

What a surreal day. And not just because I'm hung over. This is a trip. How many people, what do you think the stats are? And how do you think this ends? Do you think a change in regime? Like, what if Trump gets back in? Will that really change anything?

It will, it will, man. Will it cause the price to go up, down? What does that do to the cartels? This is the thing. What Trump and probably a lot of Trump supporters don't realize, is that in policy, he's probably not that off, right? He's probably sort of right. When it comes to policymaking, right?

It worked during his administration. The economics of the U.S. were not as down us right now. A lot of stuff was working, right? But when you put out a discourse, you have to remember that these criminal organizations work, as you said, stalk market, right? On a speculation, on fear, on a future, that it's not certain, right?

Right. Trump is huge, dude, on sending out threats, on speculating, on overstating things. Right. His mouth is fucking huge. Even though his policies and Obama's and Biden's, they're almost imperceptible. Exactly, dude. So almost the same thing. Yeah, exactly, man.

I mean, Obama was deported in chief, right? He was deporting a lot of people. But his mouth was polite and quiet. It was making a lot of fucking fuss. Probably in Washington. That was not working because Washington and all these other cities. are made out of policy, right, of actions, not of words. But places like where I live, El Paso, Ciudad Juarez,

the impact of what you say in the U.S. or in Mexico City will have an impact on this border, right? Immediately, immediately. So you think if Trump gets the nomination, not even before he gets elected, he gets the nomination, the price will probably go up, right? It depends on how these guys perceive the new Trump, right? If they perceive like, you know what,

we know him. He wasn't that hard. It's probably gonna be you know lose again. So we're gonna so prices might go down. But if they say like oh shit it's gonna be Trump again, it's gonna be that huge fucking wall all across and it's probably depends on what he says. You sometimes at a hero, at a public event, whatever it says and I'm gonna put fucking crocodiles along the Rio Grande. And if that's not true. Yeah. These guys are gonna be like, fuck yes, that's money for us, right? So they don't see it as anything but positive, I think. Because with Biden and, you know, loose migrant policies, they're getting money. A big, huge, scary border that's with sensors and, you know, satellites, they can raise the price.

So I don't really think they see anything as negative. No, exactly. Nothing good. Because they kind of need a lot of Tony Robbins, these guys. Yeah, they're like, in the power of positive thinking. When Biden was about to become president, right? Everybody was like, yeah, Biden had a chance of winning. Most of these guys were putting their hopes on Biden, right?

Because they're like, you know what? This is not going to be Trump. So the border is going to be open. That's what they're saying, right? So they're calling every single fucking migrant network of small groups. They're like, hey, dude, it's right now the time you need to be here in Juarez, because I need to make that money because they're going to open the border. What happened?

They came here. They learned that the border was not fucking open. And they're like, oh shit, my bad. Anyways, you're already here. So you need to pay to get across. And this time is harder, man. So you really need to pay more. And they're like, fuck you.

You told me the fucking world was going to be open. It's not open. I'll have to pay you twice as well I was paying back then. What do you think about all this? I know you're a journalist. So, you know, you just give us the facts. But, you know, because I personally, just like most Americans, when I see thousands of people on camera, like just walking through the border,

right, you know, doing somersaults. I'm like, that's, that's a problem. That's scary. Yes, yes. And especially, you know, hearing that the money that they get, and, you know, me is a kind of like a libertarian, fiscal conservative, I'm like, our country is, has debt that we can almost never repay.

We don't have, we can't be paying, we can't be given a guy who came here illegally $2,000 a month when, you know, there's Americans who can't feed their kids. Like, what's the, What's the happy medium? What's good about migrants coming in and what needs to change? This is the thing. To me, living in the border, living both sides, being a dual citizen,

I think we need to put things more into perspective and not to go into extremes, right? The 2,000 bugs and the cell phone and everything is not going for anyone. And again, I think the U.S. has definitely deeper fucking problems than a bunch of migrants claiming political asylum. not to diminish the problem, right? Because cities like El Paso and South Juarez, they feel hard these whole border surges. They can't absorb. How can you absorb 10,000 people a month in that little city?

And it's hard, and it's difficult, and you go through downtown and you have a bunch of people, you feel insecure, even though they probably don't want your money. If you go and hike, take a hike to that beautiful mountain, you see a large troop of Venezuela with your kid, you're like, oh shit, even though I know them, and I've been, you know, like I know immigration, whatever,

It can be intimidating, right? But again, if we let ourselves go to the both extremes where we say, like, close the fucking border, that's not going to help. If we go to the other extreme, open the fucking border. It's not going to work. I think there's got to be a point in the middle where Biden has a good idea.

The whole CVP, the whole system, he's just a shitty operator. It's someone with a great idea that's like, hey, dude, let's do a podcast right here. But it doesn't have a clue how to set up cameras, house set up lighting, you know, all that shit. We need a system.

Right now, even though Biden says there is a system, there is not a fucking, and that's putting at risk, people in the U.S., people in Mexico, democracy on both countries, the economy of both countries, and a lot of innocent people trying just to save their fucking lives

by claiming political asylum, and opening a path, because there's a mess, opening a path for criminals. Yeah. You know, making money for Mexican cartels and opening a path for actual. criminals trying to push into the U.S.

Right. So I think we need the details. We need the detail. When we read headlines, we listen to politicians, when we hear about like how they're going to establish a new policy, immigration policy, whatever. We need the details. That's why you need longer, longer journalism,

you know? Yeah, that's right. Podcasts. What will a bunch of Venezuelans, let's say, right? Let's remove like the African immigrants and let's just say Latinos. What will that What will a huge influx of Venezuelan migrants due to the Mexican labor force in the U.S.? Will Mexicans feel threatened?

Yeah. Because they'll undercut even illegal Mexican wages? Yeah. Like what? This is the thing. Most of the guys who are released into the U.S., they can't work. They can't obtain a permit to work. Okay, yes.

Because of Venezuela, they can't work, right? Why? Because the government says like that. They say like, okay. Technically, you're still illegal. Yeah, if you're an illegal. you're not able to, if we find you working, we're saying you back to your fucking country.

You can't work. You need to stay put. So they're like, what are we going to leave off of? Right? Sometimes they're just giving $2,000, why you say, not to all of them, to some of them.

Some others are just begging for money. Some others are just literally waiting on the shelters for people like myself to, you know, give them goods, give them a jacket, give them clothes, you know? Can they get work in kitchens the way, you know, the early Mexican immigrants did?

can't. If they get caught, they're going to lose their whole political talent process. They're going to put that at stake. So there's a bunch of Mexicans in Opaism, different places, saying like, these guys are fucking lazy. They're just like laying outside the shelter all day, begging for money. So they got that they're lazy, bro. It's that they can't work. They're risking the whole political asylum. So this is fucked up. This is almost like welfare. It's disincentivizing people to become citizens and to work. It's horrible. That's what I'm telling you. It's all in the details, right? It's not that they don't want to work. They can't. So there is not a system that works.

They're like, okay, we'll put you in. And then what? We'll tell you later, but stay put. And they're like, but in the meantime, what are we going to do? Right? Okay, let me ask you this, because, you know, you're very much an American, even though you've lived here all your life, you know, you've got cultural elements in both. Do you think because of how deeply corrupt, almost hopelessly corrupt Mexico is,

Do you think it would be fair? You know, Trump had the remain in Mexico policy while you're waiting to get cleared to go in. What do you think about that? Like the U.S. saying, no, no, no, no, no, you guys got to deal with them. You got factories where they can work. You're the ones who are facilitating all this. Like, how do you feel is half Mexican?

Yeah, I feel that it makes perfect sense, right? Yeah, you can wait in Mexico if there were not a lot of fucking criminals praying on you, right? You could probably get some decent work at a factory. We need a lot of fucking workforce in Quadas. It's a very dynamic city. There's a lot of jobs opening every single fucking day.

The thing is, you have a bunch of fucking criminals praying on these guys. Well, what would they do? If there was a remaining, like, you can't force a person to go across the board. No, but that's what has been happening before when we're seeing this footage, footage of migrants getting kidnapped, getting killed, asked for ransom, you know, just because

you hear the accent. Some of the Venezuelans did, they wouldn't even, they're going to try to hide their accent. They're going to talk. So like, eh, way. Down the way. Yeah, because they're trying to hide that because they know that immediately as one of these guys say like, oh, a Venezuelano. Yeah. Hey, if he has a neck, he's not Mexican. Come over here, man. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. If he has a space between his shores and his chin, He's not Mexican. No Mexican, dude, yes. Man, well, Luis, fantastic, nuanced as usual.

You know, plug away, please. I need you guys to really go out and fuck with his page. He's trying to get the socials up and the YouTube. Tell him what you got going on. I'm trying to get people to subscribe to my Instagram channel at Luis Kuriaki. You'll plug it in, hopefully. And yeah, I mean, you're going to. You're not going to get any exclusive.

I believe in open information for everyone at the only paywalls. So, yeah, I'm just going to post everyone, but, I mean, everything open. But if you guys can't support, it's just $2.99 a month. Nothing, right? The, what, New York Times subscription is like $10 a month? It's insane. The average is $4 a month. I'm just charging $2.00.

I pay $5 for coffee. Yeah, exactly, dude. Yeah, go support him. Yeah, I'm putting up there a bunch of reels, a bunch of information photos, a lot of shit. exclusive and original content. I mean, yeah, dude, it's killer. And then how do we rap? I mean, so the sun's about to go down.

What if they, would you see a group of guys like coming up and telling us to leave? Like, we'll be in trouble? That's exactly what you don't want. Yeah. Because these where we are right now, it's in the middle of nowhere, dude. But it doesn't feel like it, because look it,

I'm surrounded by civilization. Or this is considered the middle of nowhere? Yeah, dude. This is enough, because I mean we you have that highway yeah and then you have the dirt road with two so here yeah this is this is no man's land no one no one no one will get here to so save you so i imagine you go 10 miles out there it's in the middle of the desert yeah and those routes i mean that's like bandito i mean you don't go out there i'm citizens don't go out there yeah

because there's another port of entry there if you're going straight to that port of entry But even that port of entry closes like at night, right? It's going to close operations. So, yeah, they're like, you don't want to be here. You don't want to hear, the whole time I've been seeing here, I was like, I'm just waiting for no one to, you know, because whenever you hear a vehicle here, then... Okay, yeah, let's get the fuck out of here.

Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, Louise. Let's go, bro. You're the best, buddy. Ryan Reynolds here from Mintmobil, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird.

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