Former Border Patrol Chief Tells Congress Drug Cartels Control US Border With Mexico

Unaccompanied children aged 3 to 9 inside a playpen at the Donna Department of Homeland Security holding facility, the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley in Donna, Texas, on March 30, 2021. Dario Lopez-Mills/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Mexico-based drug cartels—and not the government of the United States—“control everything that crosses that southwest border,” including “illegal migrant crossings” that “create gaps in border security,” according to former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott.

“When I say gaps in border security, I mean they overwhelm all of our law enforcement in the area beyond the Border Patrol, and that creates gaps where there is no law enforcement, and then they bring into the country anything they want,” Scott said during a May 23 hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.