U.S. Border Patrol agents in Arizona recovered a dead 7-year-old girl from India in the middle of the remote desert mountains west of Quitobaquito Springs Wednesday morning, the latest sobering reminder of the real costs of the country’s illegal immigration crisis.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection report the girl was dropped off by smugglers with four others in a “dangerous and austere location” about 17 miles west of Lukeville, where the Mexican Highway 2 runs parallel to the U.S. border for several miles.
A deceased child, believed to be a seven-year-old citizen of India, was discovered 17 miles west of Lukeville by U.S. Border Patrol yesterday morning. Bi-national search for anyone associated continues. @CBP #TucsonSector Details: https://t.co/tQAxifezk5 pic.twitter.com/XBJkDpJH02
— CBP Arizona (@CBPArizona) June 13, 2019
Agents found two women from India who told them they became separated from three others – a woman and two children – hours earlier. Officials launched a manhunt in the remote terrain involving aircraft and helicopters from both the National Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations, as well as backup from other border patrol units, the Bureau of Land Management and local law enforcement.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department located the little girl’s remains in an area about seven miles west of Quitobaquito Springs, and agents now believe the other two headed back to Mexico.
“Late last night, U.S. Border Patrol agents located footprints indicating the remaining two members of the group crossed back into Mexico. CBP and Mexican authorities continue to search the area for any associated persons,” according to a Thursday CBP report. “At this time, no additional members of the group have been located on either side of the border.”
The abandoned child was located about one mile north of the border in the rugged desert wilderness, where temperatures reached 108 degrees Wednesday.
She’s only the latest victim of illegal immigration that contributes to the deaths of countless Americans and migrants every year, from those trekking through the desert or attempting to wade the Rio Grande River to U.S. citizens murdered by illegal immigrant criminals with multiple prior deportations.
“Our sympathies are with this little girl and her family,” Tucson Chief Patrol Agent Roy Villareal said. “This is a senseless death driven by cartels who are profiting from putting lives at risk.”
The porous border is insanely lucrative for cartels that control the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants into the U.S. – likely bigger than America’s very biggest companies, Sen. David Perdue told lawmakers during a Senate hearing on the drug trade Tuesday.
The Republican senator from Georgia estimates the flow of drugs alone to rival Walmart, not to mention human trafficking, money laundering, and other ventures.
“Five hundred billion dollars … that makes the cartel business and the drug traffic just in Mexico coming across to the United States bigger than Walmart, so this is larger than our largest companies,” he said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said estimates for the drug trade ranged between $426 billion $652 billion, while Walmart reports annual net profits of roughly $500 billion, according to Breitbart.
“Its reach is global, its distribution is growing, its leadership is criminal,” Feinstein said. “Like any business, it adapts to market changes. Its motivation is power and profit at any costs.”
The cost is lives like the young child who perished in Arizona this week, countless others before her, and the tens of thousands who die from cartel violence, drug overdoses, and other criminal border business. This spring, border agents found another young child abandoned by smugglers in a field, with a nonworking phone number scribbled on his shoe.
“They’ll traffic in drugs, migrants, in human beings for sex slavery, money laundering, counterfeit goods, whatever will make them a buck,” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, told his colleagues Tuesday.
“The groups fueling this cycle are becoming richer and growing their influence in the United States, and without intervention, their power will only continue to grow,” he said. “It’s not hyperbole to say we’ve reached a crisis point.”
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