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As migrants pour into the U.S. illegally, Mexican cartels are using smartphones to facilitate their smuggling, making payments to drivers and manipulating the Customs and Border Protection app to get more people in. The CBP One app allows entrants to the United States to schedule appointments to appear at U.S. ports of entry. Ostensibly, its users must be in northern Mexico to schedule an appointment, though reporting from the Washington Examiner suggested that users have turned to virtual private networks (VPN) to evade the geographic requirements. House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, R-Tenn., confirmed to the outlet...

Dozens of congressional Republicans traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas on Wednesday to get a firsthand look at the illegal immigration crisis resulting from what they argue are the Biden administration’s failed policies. “It’s been an eye opener,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, who led the delegation of more than 60 GOP lawmakers to Eagle Pass, Texas. The trip came amid ongoing negotiations on Capitol Hill to strike a bipartisan deal on border security. Lawmakers toured a Border Patrol processing center and heard from local residents and sheriffs as well. “We’ve learned a considerable amount of what’s going on...

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, hinted to a U.S. delegation that he will reduce migration to the United States if liberal President Joe Biden gives more aid and support to Latin American dictators. Instead of blocking migration, “it is more efficient and more humane to invest in the development of the people,” Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said before the Wednesday meeting. “The migration issue is going to intensify” in 2024, he added.

President Joe Biden took major action ahead of the holiday and pardoned all Americans arrested, prosecuted, or convicted on federal charges for marijuana use, following through on his 2020 campaign promise to expunge cannabis use offenses. Biden signed a proclamation Friday that forgives U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents caught by law enforcement for possessing the drug and charged, going far beyond the sweeping actions he took last year for thousands of people convicted of possession. The new action includes "additional offenses of simple possession and use of marijuana under federal and D.C. law," the White House said in a...

Why isn’t the U.S. doing more to secure our borders? Ed Calderon spent 12 years policing the most violent drug cartels. PragerU CEO Marissa Streit questions him about his experience in Mexico, his concern over America’s open borders, and how our enemies are working with criminal organizations to destabilize the United States. Ed says we have a moral obligation to warn our citizens of imminent danger.

CBP is warning its agents to 'exercise extreme caution' after the Mexican military seized 10 IEDs at the border U.S. Customs and Border Protection is warning agents to be on the lookout for explosive devices. A federal law-enforcement source shared with FOX Business Network an internal officer safety alert dated December 13th that warns CBP agents to be vigilant after the Mexican military seized 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at the border. The IEDs were found by Mexican authorities after Tucson border patrol observed gunshots at the U.S.-Mexico border and a Tucson supervisory border patrol agent arrested an armed person...

A pair of jaguars discovered in a cage on a ranch exposed a cruel new fashion among Ecuador's drug lords. In the style of Colombian cocaine baron Pablo Escobar, they are erecting private, illegal zoos as a status symbol. In May, police came upon the sorry sight of the two endangered felines perched on a log surrounded by iron bars. They were held on a property owned by Wilder Sanchez Farfan — alias "Gato" (The Cat) — a suspected drug lord with ties to Mexico's Jalisco New Generation cartel and wanted in the United States. Farfan was arrested in Colombia...

The United States must have an “absolute zero tolerance policy” on illegal immigration, Republican Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno said during a candidate forum this week in the Buckeye State, differentiating himself from his challengers.The forum featured three Republican Senate candidates — Moreno, GOP Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and State Sen. Matt Dolan (R) — all vying for Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) seat.During the forum, Moreno — who legally migrated from Columbia — listed eliminating illegal immigration as one of the three biggest issues facing the business community, thereby identifying it as something that Congress should promptly address. Further,...

For Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, the operation was a small victory in the much larger battle against human traffickers.. In the fight against Mexican cartels, Texas law enforcement recently took control of a dangerous island used by human traffickers. The Epoch Times spoke to Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who identified Fronton Island as possibly “the most violent part” of the Texas–Mexico border. Belonging to Texas, Fronton Island is an island in the Rio Grande River. According to the General Land Office, “Fronton Island has been a hot spot for drug and human trafficking and dangerous cartel activity in...

This is the moment a fugitive Venezuelan drug trafficker known as Taliban is dumped alive in the ocean with his hands zip-tied and an anchor around his waist in revenge for stealing 200 kilograms of cocaine - and cash - from the Cartel. Reinaldo Fuentes is seen bound and gagged with blood stains on the back of his head before his killers struggle to heave him - and the anchor - over the side of a boat into the Caribbean Sea near Martinique. The footage, shared to social media, shows Fuentes staring at the person recording the video. He is...

Three men are accused of abducting a Florida man in Fort Lauderdale at gunpoint, waterboarding him and then trying to enlist his help in their plot when they realized they'd taken the wrong person, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday. The alleged victim played along until he got away long enough to call in a bomb threat that sent a massive police response to the rescue, authorities said. The suspects are two bothers, Jeffry Arista, 32, and Jonathan Arista, 29, and a third man named Raymond Gomez. They allegedly snatched a man in a parking garage outside his Fort...

Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, once ruled by now-jailed drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has barred the production of fentanyl — under penalty of death. The about-face by the narco crew — the main trafficker of the deadly synthetic opioid flooding the US — comes as El Chapo’s kids bow to a mounting law enforcement crackdown on the drug trade, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The order came from the “Chapitos” — the name for Guzman’s sons, who took over the operation. “In Sinaloa, the sale, manufacture, transport or any kind of business involving the substance known as fentanyl,...

Ecuadorian right-wing Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated at a campaign rally on Wednesday. Fernando Villavicencio was reportedly shot in the head three times. A grenade was also found at the scene. WATCH: Quedó grabado el Momento exacto en que matan a Fernando Villavicencio!! pic.twitter.com/7kpqUzwzQ4 — Emergencias Ec (@EmergenciasEc) August 10, 2023 According to local media reports, supporters of Fernando Villavicencio managed to capture a suspect after the assassination. WATCH: Simpatizantes de Fernando Villavicencio lograron capturar a un sospechoso del crimen al candidato. pic.twitter.com/juqh67WlYk — Ronald Vinces (@RonaldVinces5) August 10, 2023 Additional footage of the immediate aftermath and chaos was...

Ecuador presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead during a campaign event in northern Quito on Wednesday night, according to Reuters. A suspect in the killing of Villavicencio later died from injuries sustained during a shootout, the attorney general's office said on Twitter. "A suspect, who was injured during the shootout with security personnel, was apprehended and moved, badly injured, to the (attorney general's) unit in Quito. An ambulance from the fire department confirmed his death, the police are proceeding with collection of the cadaver," the attorney general's office said. Villavicencio's party Movimiento Construye said on armed men attacked its...

Six men suspected of killing Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio have been killed in prison. The prison authority in Ecuador reported this in a statement. Ecuadorian President Lasso writes on... Drug violence Villavicencio was shot dead in the capital Quito in August after speaking at a campaign rally, two weeks before the elections. The gunman was killed in a shootout after the attack. Shortly after Villavicencio's murder, six Colombians were arrested. They were linked to the Los Lobos drug gang. It is not clear whether these are also the six suspects who have now been killed. Villavicencio's death shocked the...

SALTILLO, Mexico – Gabby and Ana are in love. So are Marco Antonio and Juan Carlos. Under a sweeping new law allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions, they are planning to turn their love into a legal commitment. Legislators in the dusty northern border state of Coahuila have stunned Mexico by giving same-sex couples property and inheritance rights long reserved for married heterosexuals. It is a first for this predominantly Roman Catholic country, a measure so swift and so bold that it surprised even the gay community. All of a sudden, gay rights are on the national agenda. Since...

In the early dawn's orange glow, a Texas Rangers commander briefs a heavily armed invasion force. They're preparing to seize a remote, 170-acre Mexican cartel-controlled island in the middle of the Rio Grande River overlooked by sniper nests and potentially booby-trapped. Some of the dozens of assembled men shift from one foot to another or reposition their M-4 rifles as they listen to their commanders' instructions. 'Keep a close eye on those structures up there that have height advantage on us,' he warns. 'In case we do get engaged and someone is shot' medical evacuation plans are in place and...

NEW YORK -- There has been another arrest in the fentanyl-related death of a baby at a Bronx day care. A fourth person was in custody Tuesday after being on the run for a week and a half. CBS New York has learned suspect Felix Herrera-Garcia was arrested in Mexico while on a bus to the city of Culiacan, which is a hub for the most powerful drug cartel in the world. Herrera-Garcia was last seen carrying bags out the back alley of Divino Nino Day Care on Sept. 15, after the babies inside were exposed to fentanyl.

The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois. Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada Corporation,...

Allegheny County court officials are still trying to figure out how a man accused of carrying $1.6 million in fentanyl in Pittsburgh was released from custody this month, and now another judge is reportedly involved in the snafu. A nationwide arrest warrant was issued for Yan Carlos Pichardo Cepeda, 27, after he failed to appear for court. Pichardo Cepeda, of New York, is accused of carrying hundreds of thousands of fentanyl doses at a Pittsburgh bus station. He was given a nonmonetary bond by a district judge and released. He missed a second court date on Tuesday. Local politicians are...