Senator Ted Cruz of Texas attacked the alleged slave trade conducted across the Southern Border in a video showing graphic images of alleged victims. Highlighting the drug cartels’ alleged role in transporting unlawful migrants into the United States, Senator Cruz suggested that many of these people, often minors, are taken advantage of and brutalized.
In the video titled “Abolish the Narco Slave Trade,” Senator Cruz declared, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are responsible for the worst plague of slavery in America since the Civil War.” The claim was followed by several graphic images of dead or seriously injured people near the Texas-Mexico border.
While describing the hardships these unlawful migrants are subjected to, Cruz related that while young boys are allegedly forced to work for the cartels, “the teenage girls experience a hell worse than that,”
According to an international antislavery nonprofit, it is estimated that there are currently over 40 million people enslaved across the world.
In Mexico alone, as many as 400,000 individuals are classified as living in modern slavery.
The office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates that 1 in 4 victims are children and that 99% of the victims of sex slavery are women or girls.
Over 1,746,119 “migrant encounters” have been documented since October of 2021, making it on pace for being the most ever recorded in a fiscal year. At the same time, the Biden administration reduced the number of prosecutions to less than 3,000 last year, compared to over 13,000 during Trump’s last year in office.
Senator Cruz claims that the Biden administration’s soft stance on border security has enabled and emboldened human traffickers to increase the slave trade.
Reports have suggested that smugglers are benefiting from the policy change; according to a 2021 Reuters investigation, one alleged smuggler said that “It’s good to take advantage of the moment because children are able to pass quickly… That’s what we’re telling everyone.”
In the most recent press release concerning security on the southern border, the White House acknowledged the issue, saying, “The administration has made significant progress at establishing a well-managed and secure border while also treating people fairly and humanely.”
It also noted, “On her trip to Guatemala, the Vice President announced a new Human Smuggling and Trafficking Task Force that will identify, disrupt, and prevent migrant smuggling and human trafficking operations.”