Tulsi Gabbard and other federal officials celebrated the breakup of an infant trafficking ring, among other law enforcement victories, Thursday at a White House roundtable on combatting human trafficking at the southern border.
Mexican authorities arrested Martha Alicia Mendez Augilar, “La Diabla,” in Juarez last month for allegedly presiding over an infant smuggling and organ harvesting operation.
Augilar, reportedly a leading member of the Jalisco Nuevo Genaracion cartel, would capture poor, pregnant mothers and force them to get a C-section before murdering them. The women’s organs were harvested and sold. Their babies were trafficked into to American for between $13,000 and $14,000 each.
Augilar’s arrest led to the recovery of at least one baby, whom officials found injured but alive. Local reporters claim the baby’s mother was found dead in the gang member’s backyard. She was just 20 years old.
The arrest of “La Diabla” and subsequent eradication of the cartel’s horrifying trafficking ring would not have been possible without American counterterrorism resources and intelligence, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reported at the roundtable.
Analysts at the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center helped Mexican authorities track Augilar’s location and organize the operation that led to her arrest, Joe Kent, the center’s director, told reporters in September.
America only began using the National Counterterrorism Center to target gangs like Jalisco Nuevo Genaracion in January, when President Trump signed an executive order classifying cartels and transnational criminal organizations, like the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations.
The order allows law enforcement to use American counterterrorism resources, tactics and intelligence to stop cartels from smuggling drugs, humans and other contraband across the U.S. border.
Thursday’s roundtable also recognized the success of “Protecting American People Against Invasion,” the executive order establishing a Homeland Security Task Force in every state.
Per the order, the task forces coordinate federal, local and state resources to:
- End the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States.
- Dismantle cross-border human smuggling and trafficking networks.
- End the scourge of human smuggling and trafficking, with a particular focus on such offenses involving children.
The Homeland Security Task Forces have led to the arrest of 3,000 foreign terrorists and cartel members since becoming fully operational at the end of August, White House spokespeople told Fox Digital.
The successful crackdown on human trafficking reflects the federal government’s increasing understanding of how cartels and transnational criminal organizations control the flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border.
Concern began mounting during the Biden administration, in which historic numbers of migrants entered America illegally — evidently at the cartels behest.
“Human smuggling is no longer dominated by individual ‘coyotes’ guiding immigrants across the border,” a 2023 brief from the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force explains.
“Over the last ten years, migrant smuggling has transformed into a ‘multi-billion-dollar international business controlled by organized crime, with less-violent and less-organized smuggling entities being co-opted by larger, more dangerous transnational networks.”
Congressional testimonies from several senior border officials confirm cartels have monopolized illegal border crossings. Migrants seeking to enter the country illegally can no longer do so alone. They must pay the gang in charge — or face severe consequences.
Cartels further profit from vulnerable migrants by kidnapping them for ransom, forcing them into debt bondage, or orchestrating their crossing to overwhelm border agents and facilitate the movement of other contraband.
The cartels frequently target women and children. Aaron Heitke, a chief border agent at the San Diego land border sector, told Congress:
It’s very common that female migrants are raped during the [journey]. It’s also very difficult to be able to get them to talk. Most of them believe it’s just part of the payment as they go up. It’s unfortunately very regular within the population.
Supporting and incentivizing illegal immigration is not compassionate — it’s co-signing the enrichment of cartels and the victimization of families, women and children.
By enforcing policies making human smuggling less prevalent and lucrative, America is combatting exploitative systems and saving human lives.
Additional Articles and Resources
Tom Homan: We Have the Most Secure Border in American History
Trump Executive Orders Target Illegal Immigration, Troops Sent to Border
Border Crackdown Discourages ‘Fraudulent Families,’ Child Trafficking
Crackdown on Illegal Immigration Protects Children
Trump Sees Lowest Border Numbers in History: ‘The Invasion is Over’
Trump Executive Orders Target Illegal Immigration, Troops Sent to Border
American Immigration System Loses Contact with Tens of Thousands of Migrant Children
Familial DNA Testing on the Southern Border Shouldn’t Have Ended
