A newly-elected Texas Congresswoman is calling for the defunding of the Mexican cartels effectively in control of the U.S. southwestern border.
“We need to defund the cartels,” U.S. Congresswoman Mayra Flores said during an exclusive interview in Spanish with Breitbart News, where she talked about how criminal organizations from Mexico are the only ones benefiting from the current border crisis.
Flores made history in June when she became the first Mexican-born female to be elected to the House of Representatives. She flipped Texas Congressional District 34, which was historically a Democrat stronghold.
“Unfortunately, we have a border that is in control of criminal organizations,” Flores said, referring to the operational control along the border by the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas. Currently, the Gulf Cartel operates one of the most active human and drug trafficking corridors in Flores’s district. “It is a sad reality, but no one can cross the border into this country without having to pay thousands of dollars to criminal organizations.”
The issue which has been largely ignored by most politicians in Washington and helped create a cycle of violence and abuse where women and children suffer unspeakable horrors at the hands of cartel-connected smugglers, she said.
In many cases, victims suffer sexual and physical abuse. In other instances, victims are kidnapped and held for ransom. “It is something that is happening that in reality, it embarrasses me that it is happening in this country because we are better than that,” Flores added.
According to Flores, securing the border and creating a streamlined process for legal immigration would help to defund cartels.
“I believe that we need to secure our border and to help good people come here legally,” she said. “Where there is a safe process also where people can come without having to go through, like I said before, without having to go through hell.”
