‘They Trade In Things That Make Them Money’: Sen. Cornyn Says Cartels Making Huge Profits From Border Crisis

Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn said Sunday that Mexican cartels are making huge profits from human smuggling during the current border crisis.

“What people need to understand is these are criminal organizations,” Cornyn told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” adding that “they trade in things that make them money, whether it’s trafficking and sex, women and children for sex, whether it’s drugs, illegal drugs … which killed 70,000 Americans just in the last couple of years on an annual basis.”

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“These criminal organizations have networks all around the world and it’s just a matter of price. If you want to come from Mexico, it’s one price, about three to $4,000,” the senator said. (RELATED: ‘People Will Die. People Will Be Raped’: Former Acting ICE Chief Says Biden Has Declared America A ‘Sanctuary Jurisdiction’)

But that’s a relative bargain, as Cornyn noted the cost is much more for people coming from Central America. “There’s a premium paid for that. If you want to come from Europe or the Middle East and many countries of special interest and concern to the United States government, if you pay the price, $15,000 or so, maybe more, then you can make it through these criminal networks,” he said.

The senator noted that the migrants are certainly not just people “fleeing poverty or violence in Central America. These are people literally coming from all around the world and we don’t know who they are.”

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley has asked Vanita Gupta, one of President Joe Biden’s key Justice Department nominees, about the millions of dollars in stock holdings she owns in a chemical company responsible for producing the heroin the cartels peddle.

Gupta owns between $11 million and $55 million shares of Avantor, a chemical company run out of Pennsylvania.

Migrants hold a demonstration demanding clearer United States migration policies, at San Ysidro crossing port in Tijuana, Baja California state, Mexico on March 2, 2021. – Thousands of migrants out of the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP) program are stranded along the US-Mexico border without knowing when or how they will be able to start their migratory process with US authorities. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP) (Photo by GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images)