Weaponized Mass Migration is Happening at the Southern Border
Newly retired Border Patrol agent Ammon Blair spills his guts: Conservative Review
Conservative Review with Daniel Horowitz, December 13, 2023.
Guest: Ammon Blair
“A Newly Retired Border Patrol Agent Spills His Guts on the Failure of his Agency”
(13:13)
DANIEL HOROWITZ: I’m really excited about today’s interview. It’s an interview I’ve been meaning to do for five years, but for obvious reasons couldn’t do.
Ammon Blair. He spent 20 years in the Army with the Texas National Guard, and then the past 10 and a half years he doubled-up as a border agent in the busiest sector, the Rio Grand Valley.
And he served on the river itself for a few years. And he’s seen everything. He has seen it from all perspectives, and he just, he couldn’t take it any more.
It’s a pretty good paying job, especially for that part of the country. He’s got kids. But after just 10 years — it’s not enough to get your pension — he gave it up.
How many more are going to be doing that? Both on the military side, and on the Border Patrol side?
I mean, this really represents the service that we used to have in this country, where we wanted our best — people that are intelligent, that could make more money in the private sector — become a Border Patrol agent, become a soldier.
But we’ve made those institutions insufferable. And literally antithetical to their stated mission. To the point where now you’re only going to attract people that don’t share our values.
So, people like Ammon are leaving.
Abbott could shut this down, if he wanted to. Texas has an entire infantry division. But we base our operations from our perceptions. You can tell how Abbott thinks what the border is, and what the border situation is, based on how he operates.
Since leaving the Border Patrol, Ammon has been the Senior Fellow for the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Secure and Sovereign Frontier Initiative, he also does some consulting for Omni Intelligence, a private company that provides intelligence and advice on tracking the transnational threats into Texas and the U.S.
And he is finally here today, unshackled, to speak to us candidly today about his experience at the border.
Hey, Ammon! I can’t believe we’re putting this conversation public, finally! Welcome to the Blaze.
(15:08)
AMMON BLAIR: Hey, thank you, this is amazing, long time coming.
HOROWITZ: We’re at an interesting point in history, where the issue of the border, the invasion, is worse than it’s ever been, it’s getting worse by the day.
It’s out of control.
On the one hand, everyone recognizes it — it’s not like it was five years ago, where it’s just kind of a group of us talking about it. Every Republican is like, “oh, it’s terrible, we need border security, we need border security.”
But lo and behold, after a year of GOP control of the House, it has gotten worse than ever. The numbers are worse this year than last year. What is the biggest misconception among Republicans about Border Patrol and the concept of border security in general?
(15:57)
BLAIR: That’s a really good question. I would say the biggest misconception is actually understanding what is actually happening.
So, as it stands right now, whenever you hear any of the rhetoric, or the narrative, coming out of Republicans or the GOP, you constantly hear them saying that the Biden administration is failing.
But when you look at the situation, you can actually see that Biden and Mayorkas are actually succeeding in their mission.
What I mean by that is, what’s currently happening on the southern border is weaponized mass migration.
You had Joseph Humire on your show recently talking about weaponized mass migration. What people don’t realize is that the Biden administration and the Department of Homeland Security are utilizing that hybrid warfare tactic against our own sovereignty.
It is their whole intent, and their mission, to eradicate the sovereignty of our nation through this hybrid attack of weaponized mass migration.
(17:10)
He’s taking the same playbook as Lukashenko is taking from Belarus and what he’s doing to Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
Where in Belarus, he invited many foreign nationals into his country, he relaxed his immigration [laws], let them in, used travel agencies to bring them in, then he paid money to bus them to the borders of each of those other countries — Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.
And what is also interesting is, when he was doing this, back in 2021, the Commissioner for the EU came to the United States, came to the White House, and formally declared that this is not a migration crisis, but it is a hybrid attack.
And so, because of that, just because of using that definition, it has allowed Poland to repel quote-unquote “asylum seekers” that Lukashenko is using as a weapon to eradicate their sovereignty.
(18:24)
If we take that same playbook and we analyze what is currently happening on our own southern border, we can see that the Biden administration is following a history of non-state and state actors doing the same thing to other countries’ sovereign borders.
If you read a lot of the studies that Joseph Humire talks about, you’ll see that more than 80 countries — or state and non-state actors — have done this since the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
And so, framing it as an actual form of warfare — weaponized mass migration — you’ll then be able to realize that it’s never going to stop.
In his mind, in Mayorkas’ mind, they are succeeding. Whenever they do say it’s about security, they are securing it, what they mean is they are managing the security of the foreign nationals that they are bringing into the United States. That is what they are securing.
They are securing that process of the humane and regular migration of every foreign national throughout the world. And if you look at the rhetoric from COP 28, they were talking about “climate refugees.”
(19:58)
HOROWITZ: Yep, that was that global warming conference they just held —
BLAIR: In the UAE, yep. And so when you look at that rhetoric you will see that. There was an Australian think tank that projected about 1.2 billion people migrating due to the “climate disaster” or “climate crisis” that they claimed.
So, unfortunately, we have set the stage here in the United States, where the Department of Defense, DHS, CIA, they have all stated that climate, the current situation with our climate, is an existential threat. To the United States. And therefore, if it’s an existential threat to us, then it must be [an existential threat] to the rest of the nations. Which would allow the people to migrate to the U.S.
Just to further their whole mission of eradicating our national sovereignty, and then really eradicating our citizenship, that Victor Davis Hanson talks about.
(21:03)
HOROWITZ: So in other words, what you’re saying, before we get to brass tacks, before we get to the mechanics of the border. The problem is, with republicans, and a lot of fake conservatives, is they talk about this as if it’s a natural disaster.
Well, there’s a border crisis, you know, like a hurricane, something blew them over. And Biden is failing at properly and efficiently and competently managing it.
When in fact, no. It’s an organized attack, they’re doing it on all sorts of fronts, they’re doing it with their NGOs. So when republicans say that, oh, we need, in exchange for Ukraine — which I’m not going to get into, now, but we shouldn’t be doing that at all — but in exchange for Ukraine funding, I need some border security.
But in fact, describe in the current context what would happen if I would hire more border agents, more detention space, more drones, more assets — what would that translate to?
(22:06)
BLAIR: More illegal immigration. That’s what it would translate to. More people coming in. That’s their whole point.
When you read the studies Joseph Humire talked about, when you read all the history of weaponized mass migration, you realize the whole purpose of it is to, one, create chaos, and two, to coerce that nation-state to force all their tools and their resources to address that threat.
So, by increasing the amount of Border Patrol agents, all you would be doing is increasing the ability for agents to then expedite people, illegal aliens, into the United States. That’s all you would be doing.
In regard to the drones, now drones are one of our greatest threats on the border, there are thousands and thousands of incursions, and we rarely ever are able to take them down. So, a counterdrone would be more useful.
But, unfortunately, the Border Patrol agency, itself, is kind of being turned into a humanitarian relief agency. A lot of the dollars are going towards that, and going towards the management — the humane management — of the foreign nationals coming across.
So, really, any tool, or any resource that we add onto, right now, will be used for Biden and Mayorkas’ orchestrated mass migration.
(23:51)
HOROWITZ: So my question to you — this is what I’ve long said — as a border agent in the hottest spots, like around Starr County [Texas], you operated right there on the river, where, at least until recently, for about ten years, it has been the busiest spot.
Now it has transferred westward, in Texas, now in Lukeville, Arizona. The point is that — it’s not a resource problem. Right? It’s a malignant problem. You invite illegals, they’ll come. You disinvite them, they won’t come. Right? You cut off the magnets. You certainly stop funding it, stop having these NGOs working with them, they won’t come.
So, the question is, what do you do? You’re saying, it’s not a resource issue.
I’ve long advocated that the only way to fight it is … to leverage the states. [The Biden administration] incentivized them, but we’ll disincentivize them. Give authority to the states to deport.
Aside from that, if you're a member of Congress and wanted to have a knock-down drag-out budget fight, appropriations fight, with the risk of a government shutdown, to harness national attention on one aspect of this, to leverage one policy. Is there anything that you would advocate for that should be done, either legally or tactically, aside from empowering the states to deport?
(25:32)
BLAIR: The first is understanding the situation. I would first like to see members of Congress taking the situation and comparing it to, like I said, Joseph Humire’s work, and others’ work in weaponized mass migration.
To truly show that this is an actual plan. And nothing is going to change unless we highlight the fact that this is actually planned.
And then the next, really, after that, leveraging. Of course. I know that the New York City mayor went to the White House and came back, and stated that all is lost. And that’s because his power and clout doesn’t match the power and clout of those that are controlling this country.
And so, really, it’s going to be all up to the states.
Abbott could shut this down, if he wanted to. We have Thirty-Sixth Infantry Division, so we have an entire infantry division in the State of Texas.
But unfortunately — a quote from a Marine Corps doctrine manual, we base our operations from our perception.
(27:04)
You can tell how Abbott thinks what the border is, and what the border situation is, based on how he operates. Because, really, by tomorrow, all you would have to do is tell the commander of Thirty-Sixth I.D., we are activating you, your entire division, and you are given [until] this date and time to have the border completely shut down.
And then you would be able to have the 1,254 miles in Texas completely shut down — other than, of course, the ports of entry.
(27:39)
HOROWITZ: So, you’re saying … there are lots of pictures with National Guardsmen deployed, and … increasingly, more aggressively, doing enforcement actions, here or there.
But it reached the level of law enforcement, it’s not a military … a kill perimeter. Not necessarily saying kill people, but a secure perimeter — no. It’s not a matter of, we’re going to manage law enforcement — you did a crime….
But you’re saying no, nothing gets over, it’s a secure perimeter. And that’s why it’s kind of like a dog and pony show, what [Abbott]’s doing?
(28:27)
BLAIR: Yeah, correct. Really, you would be following the 2006 Secure Fence Act. You would not allow anything to come across the border in between the ports of entry.
And you would also make it so you have one hundred percent situational awareness, and domain awareness of the border itself. Because, as it stands right now, we’re still completely blind. We don’t have one hundred percent domain awareness. Meaning, we still don’t know who, what, where, how, why or when people — or other illicit commodities — are coming across.
We just don’t have one hundred percent. Let alone, perimeter fencing or a wall.
So, that would be the first thing, and the fastest way to do that is by placing manpower there, so you can actually see what is coming across. And that would be having the 36th I.D. actually activated on the border itself.
And then from there, you can start building infrastructure. Within a matter of weeks, you could have a complete secure border.
Other than — like I said, since the Biden administration is utilizing his parallel immigration system, whether that is through CBP One, or actually flying them in to airports throughout the United States.
That’s weaponized mass migration through that way. But you’d still be able to stop what’s coming through between ports of entry.
(29:55)
HOROWITZ: Have you noticed a qualitative difference between the type of people coming over, when you started — during Obama’s term, versus now? Just in terms of the quality of the people, the belligerence of these people. Have you noticed a difference?
BLAIR: As it stands now, our assaults are going up. They’re a lot more aggressive. They’re carrying a lot more weapons, when they’re smuggling the illegal aliens.
Also, we’re seeing lots of different nationalities. Whereas before, it was mostly South America, and some countries in the Caribbean. Now it’s from every single country in the world. So that is a drastic change.
To include, also, those on the terrorist watch list, that we do end up apprehending, as opposed to those who get away.
(30:56)
HOROWITZ: Have you experienced dealing with Chinese a lot?
BLAIR: Yes, sir, I have.
HOROWITZ: Are they desperate looking? Are they wealthy looking? What do they look like?
BLAIR: You’re going to have a wide spectrum. You do have those who look like they’ve been through the ringer. You have some families that are coming up, that claim that they are Christian, or they claim that they are a certain religion. And they’re coming to seek asylum that way.
And then you have the others that are military age males. You can tell by the way they appear, their mannerisms, they’ve been trained.
Unfortunately we don’t, as agents, because we’re so inundated — by design, of course, like I said — we’re so inundated with a massive influx of foreign nationals, we are unable to address the Chinese threat. Or the mass migration of Chinese.
If you remember, China was on complete lockdown because of Covid. And they fully opened up, I think it was January 7. And when they did that, that’s when we started seeing a massive influx of Chinese coming into the United States. They were going to Ecuador, coming up through the Darien Gap, going through Mexico and coming up here. Or, they were going up north — if you look at the numbers from the northern ports of entry, you’re going to see massive amounts of Chinese. And Indians.
(32:35)
That’s when we really started seeing that flood. But in the very beginning, it was taking us almost four hours to do an interview. Because we had to use translation services. And we were going through, and trying to do our checks and balances, to figure out who these Chinese actually were, if they were actually threats to the nation.
But when we got inundated with more Chinese, and our numbers started increasing again, we just didn’t have the time or resources to do it.
So now, really, you ask them basic questions: whether they served in the military, their name, their biographical information. What university they want to. If it’s a university that’s backed by the CCP or the military, that’s a red flag. Then they have to go through the entire process.
But really, it’s only basic questions that are asked of these Chinese. And then they’re released into the U.S.
(33:28)
HOROWITZ: They are released. Asymmetric warfare. […]
(34:27)
What I’m trying to figure out here, is, the kind of personnel that is now going into Border Patrol, and would remain in Border Patrol.
It’s bad enough, we talk about the morale of law enforcement, local police. They’re basically being handcuffed […] [from] doing the right sorts of proactive policing.
But we don’t really have a situation — at least not yet, widespread — of the police downright being tasked to embed with bank robbers, and help them rob the bank.
I don’t think we’re quite at that level.
Whereas, when you go to the Border Patrol, it’s not just that they are not doing their mission, it’s that the mission is one hundred and eighty degrees the opposite. That they’re literally serving as vassals and conduits for the cartels to more efficiently maintain this invasion, and maintain it in a way that doesn’t raise the ire of the public. Kind of manage it very efficiently. Which is worse than inefficiently, because that would force a resolution.
So, Ammon — you got out. You couldn’t take it any more. You saw there was no purpose to you doing this. And in fact, you were violating your conscience. Who are the type of people that are remaining, or even joining new?
(35:55)
BLAIR: The ones that are remaining, there are some that are close to retirement. And they’re, like, we’re just gonna hold out.
There are those that, they don’t know what else to do, they don’t have other skill sets. You have a lot of veterans that have joined because of the actual — if you read the actual mission of the Border Patrol, of securing the border, and you know the foreign terrorist organizations that are across in Mexico, and you know the foreign threats that are coming across, you want to, still, serve your country.
So you have those guys that are hoping that, maybe, there is another administration that will come in and step in and reverse this current trend. And so they are hoping for an administration change.
And so you have guys that are still out there, even though we’re faced with all that’s going on politically, they’re still trying to get things done. And that’s why they’re still catching narcotics, they’re still trying to catch the criminals that are coming up. You still have those guys that are just trying to dominate as much as they can.
(36:57)
But, unfortunately, then, you have guys that really don’t care. At the end of the day, you have guys that are just there to collect a paycheck…. It is a decent paycheck. As a federal agent, we make pretty good money, especially down here in the Rio Grande Valley.
And so, they’re just there to collect a paycheck. They don’t care what happens to the border, so long as they go to work, they get paid to do whatever it is, have an easy day, and come back home.
So, those that we’re hiring — so all of this new rhetoric about us being more of a humanitarian agency. Really, that’s kind of the candidates that you’re also seeing….
The economy on the border is not the greatest. So when you have kids growing up — I was ranch liaison, and so I was a liaison to the border community itself. And so, we would go to high schools, and they would really look to being either a DPS trooper or Border Patrol, because you’re making, eventually, over six figures. And in the Rio Grande Valley, that’s great money. And so they’re seeing it as an economic opportunity to get out of poverty.
Regardless of what they’re doing as their day job, they could suffer in silence, so long as they could provide for their family. And so you have those.
And you still have those that still believe that the Border Patrol is still doing its actual mission, what they should be doing, and they’ve been misled.
(38:29)
HOROWITZ: What I’m concerned about, and I wanted to see if this is a growing trend. Do you have a sort of — I don’t have a good way to describe this.
They view our side, that we have these, like, law enforcement, military-oriented, patriot types, hypermasculine, you know, very patriotic. And that was kind of the stereotype of any law enforcement or military institution for many decades, dating back to, really, our founding.
Is there a growing trend of a left-wing equivalent, starting to do this? Because my concern is, looking at — and you could speak to this, too, with the military, because you left the military as well: Yes, we are seeing recruitment problems with Border Patrol, with military and local police. Depending on the city, sometimes it's really bad, but it’s not zero. It’s not like there’s nobody coming.
I cannot fathom how anyone of our ilk could join that, at this point. Are you seeing any signs of, like … maybe an Antifa-style mentality or left-wing — because they’re making it a toxic climate for people like us. Is it going to start to, do you fear, that they’re going to recruit their own types of people to be in a position wearing a badge and a gun, be that military, be that law enforcement, be that Border Patrol or ICE, certainly FBI we’re seeing, and then we’re going to have some serious tyranny problems with them?
Or is it just, those are green-haired types that will just never get involved in that?
(40:16)
BLAIR: That’s a good question. I actually really saw this. We saw this during Covid, right? We saw all those, like myself, that refused to take the jab. And of course that’s why I was forced out of the military, last year, because I refused to do so.
So, you saw a lot of us that didn’t take the job, you saw how our battle buddies, to the left and right, treated us. There was a dehumanization process, and we were constantly ridiculed by either … left and right, but also by our leadership.
We were made to look like we were kind of a threat, like a biothreat, to our own teammates. And, you really saw this. You have to realize, a lot of the officers, of course, a lot of officers are coming from universities, right?
So, whether they’re coming from West Point, or whether they’re coming from all the universities across the United States, they’re being educated by the extreme liberal professors.
(41:26)
So that ideology is now permeating a lot of the leadership within the military. Because if you go to ROTC, or you go straight through a military academy, you’re automatically coming in at 22, 23 years old, as an officer in the Army, and as a leader, with those far-leftist ideologies. So you’re really seeing that. We really saw that during Covid.
Now within Border Patrol, it’s a little different, because really, the immigration debate kind of separates you a little bit in terms of Republican and Democrat — or it used to anyway.
And so really, there’s a lot more conservatives within the Border Patrol than, I would say, the military.
HOROWITZ: Interesting!
BLAIR: Except for, I would say, the National Guard. The National Guard, depending on the state, has been somewhat kept away from the active duty type of monstrosities that are happening. It does happen in the Texas National Guard, it did happen to us. But there are some really, really good company commanders and battalion commanders in the state of Texas, and they tried to hover around their soldiers as much as they could.
But within the Border Patrol itself, you would see, compared to active duty, you’re going to see a little more conservative ideals, and that is just because of the nature of our job.
(42:58)
HOROWITZ: You’re saying it still sorts it out, it’s not like you’re going to have a bunch of Antifa guys, like, I want to be an ICE agent to subvert their mission. It’s just because the stated mission, whether they are doing it or not, is antithetical to their — I’m just concerned because we certainly see that with the FBI. Clearly, it’s not just a few bad apples. The FBI is saturated with people who believe that Hamas is not a problem, but you and I are.
And it’s not just a few of them. So I just wanted to make sure they weren’t doing that with Border Patrol. You’re saying it’s more just apathy, coming near retirement, it’s good money, what else am I going to do, I’ll just put my head down. But not so much that it’s downright subversive from the rank and file level. Because it’s already subversive from the leadership level.
(43:47)
BLAIR: Right. Well, you are seeing some of the people being submissive to Mayorkas’ line and narrative. You are seeing that kool-aid being drunk by leadership. You can see that in Del Rio where they’re trying to destroy what Texas is putting up. You’re seeing them constantly cut the concertina wire. You’re seeing kind of —
HOROWITZ: Ammon, I’m glad you brought that up. What sort of border agent does that? Walk me through the psychology.
I’m a rank-and-file border agent, just like you, got into it for roughly the same reasons, maybe some of it was economic. And I’m of, by, and for Texas. I live in Texas. I went to high school with people who became Texas DPS agents who put up the infrastructure, and I’m cutting it down.
Is it just, like, hey, I’m just following orders?
(44:45)
BLAIR: You know, some of it is. Some of it, really, Joseph Humire talks about this, and all those other that research weaponized mass migration.
So the real key in weaponized mass migration is what they call the hypocrisy cost. When you coerce a bunch of foreign nationals to come to a sovereign border, you’re going to find it’s going to be a manufactured humanitarian crisis.
You’re going to find women, and kids, and all these people coming from poor countries — by design.
What it is, by design, is to make those who are sworn to protect the country either choose security over your religious values and ethics of humanity.
HOROWITZ: Got it.
(45:36)
BLAIR: And so when you’re faced with that on a daily basis, by design, it is to wear the emotional state, the spiritual state, of the people who are sworn to protect this nation.
So what they end up doing, they start drinking the kool-aid, these people ARE asylum seekers, even though technically we know that only between 11 and 17 percent are quote-unquote actual true asylum seekers.
But they start seeing them in that light.
So they’re going to cut the razor wire. Because they are there to provide relief to the manufactured humanitarian crisis our government has created.
(46:18)
HOROWITZ: So in other words, while you and I both know — and they would know the same thing intellectually, if you study it, from a public policy standpoint, it’s like, yeah, half the world is in poverty and desperate.
But we all know it’s harmful for our country, you can’t invite the world, it’s got to be shut down. I think any sane person who is not a leftist will agree with that.
But then when you go and induce it, and it’s happening — so you put agents there every day.
Now, yeah, there’s plenty of guys who look like they just got up, tattooed up, out of the Venezuelan prisons. None of us disagree that you’ll have a tremendous amount of belligerent-looking young males, it’s often the majority these days.
But yet, you’ll have a woman and a child come up, barely breathing, outside of the Rio Grande River, coming up the berms. And that, in itself, intellectually, doesn’t make a rationale — so we let them in? No, we have to stop that.
But you’re saying on an individual, micro-level, you’re not setting policy, I’m just tasked with being here. I see some desperate people, they need help.
And then that’s how you start having BORSTAR and BORTAC, which are highly trained, to combat the bad guys, basically just doing humanitarian stuff.
(47:43)
BLAIR: Yeah, and that’s because BORSTAR, of course, are EMTs and paramedics. They’re our version of Air Force Pararescue. So really they’re there to check on that. But that’s been happening since, really, the caravans have been coming up.
We were taking BORTAC and BORSTAR off in 2019, under Trump. We were utilizing HSI, to no longer go after human trafficking cases and have them do hospital watcher, or driving a 15-packed van.
So it’s not just this administration where we were taking people from their actual jobs of national security —
HOROWITZ: And let’s be clear, this was bad bad bad bad, during the Trump administration. Until Covid.
BLAIR: Yep, it was bad.
HOROWITZ: Obviously, that baseline was blown out even more. But, Ammon, I’m assuming you can attest to the fact — this wasn’t just one or two months in 2018-2019.
(48:43)
BLAIR: No, it was for a very extended period. And so, the same process is happening. The big difference is, this president is inducing it. It’s manufactured by our own administration. He’s wilfully eradicating our sovereignty. Whereas previous administrations — maybe you could say that with Obama — but, it wasn’t the case [with the Trump administration]. [Trump] just had really bad advisors, probably.
HOROWITZ: That’s certainly the case, we saw over and over again with a lot of the personnel choices. […] I’ve barely scraped the surface, but I want to move over to the second half of this, which is the cartels.
I think we all agree that 99 percent of this is not an infrastructure problem, an asset problem, even a military problem. We made it that way. It’s literally a policy problem. You stop inviting them.
And we always knew this. The way to stop illegal immigration is to make it illegal, right? Which we don’t.
BLAIR: Right.
(50:00)
HOROWITZ: In other words, no job, no K-12, no bennies, no anything, and if we catch you, you’re going to be deported. And then not just ICE, which has at most 6,000 ERO agents, but empower every state and local law enforcement [agency] to get involved in that, 99 percent would drop.
We’ve seen that even when, on a smaller scale when we had enforcement, disincentivizing. It drops, and they don’t come.
But then you have the cartels. […]
Now, the cartels are empowered by this chaos, the distraction, the money they get from human smuggling. I get that.
But Ammon, can you isolate the cartel threat, alone? Could you describe at first, for us, give us a sense of, when we talk about the invasion. So, it’s all these people from 150 countries just storming over. Some are more belligerent, some are impoverished, but either way, I think it is appropriate to call it an invasion.
(50:59)
But then, describe to us the degree of cartel control from the ground and the air of our side of the border? Vividly paint that picture for us?
BLAIR: Sure. This is kind of hard to talk about, because a lot of people don’t want to hear about it — on both sides of the aisle.
It’s a certain type of warfare. And those of us in the military, we call it, whether it’s counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism. It’s a population-centered warfare.
Meaning — I have a question for your audience. How do all these people get away into the United States? Who is operating the stash houses? Who are operating them? Who are driving all these people across the United States?
Who are the ones that are actually watching our every move, as law enforcement?
For the most part, on our side, it’s U.S. citizens.
And, if you look at how insurgencies operate throughout the world, you’ll see that they operate within the population. They control them either through coercion or through socio-economics, corruption — you name it.
And that is how it is down here. So, the Mexican cartels control — and when we say control, it’s the same way as if I said the Taliban or ISIS control a certain region in the Middle East. They control it here, in the United States, but they have a specific foreign strategic policy not to make it go kinetic, or to make it violent, on the border, so it won’t shut down.
(52:54)
So they control the border on our side by different means. That’s through corruption, through coercion, through the possibility of being kidnapped. And also through socio-economic means. Meaning, they provide massive amounts of dollars, money, to a lot of the drivers, the juveniles.
I was just speaking to a juvenile in my last week as an agent. He was 15 years old, he was making three grand a week, cash.
HOROWITZ: Wow.
BLAIR: Smuggling. So, when you have that throughout the entire area on the southern border, then, you can see that the cartels are controlling it. But not in a way that many Americans think that war happens.
You think of World War Two, or Vietnam, where they’re shooting at each other with weapons, no. This is a different type of control. This is a population control.
And unfortunately, our law enforcement systems do not capture that.
(54:00)
HOROWITZ: What you’re getting into now is already beyond even just Border Patrol. Shouldn’t this be the job of Texas DPS, globally, and the Houston and San Antonio Police Departments, for example, to root out where they are?
I understand a lot of people would say, a lot of these people aren’t even illegal. Some of them originally were on finagled status, some of them they’re legal immigrants, they have cross-cultural ties. And some might just be native U.S. citizens for many generations, getting involved in that to some extent.
But I don’t care who you are, how is that not shut down? Because you don’t need the feds’ permission, for that.
(54:44)
BLAIR: Right. When you look at the situation right now, it’s very difficult to link anything related to the cartels, or their threat networks of gangs and what-not. You have to go through a system called National Incident-Based Reporting System, NIBRS, and do something called a Uniform Crime Report.
It’s all voluntary, and you have to be trained to do it. And so there’s really no way to put a counterinsurgency method, or whether it’s child trafficking, or human trafficking, smuggling — all of those different criminal enterprises, those are not going to be going into that [database].
So, when you have the mayor of El Paso, recently, you have Henry Cuellar come out and state that the border is the safest in the world — just look at the FBI reports!
Well, the FBI is pulling it from NIBRS, so it’s not showing any of this. So it’s showing, really, the cartels aren’t operating along the border. And so, it just helps their narrative.
Texas already has something set up, we just don’t utilize it.
(55:56)
Texas created, in 2003, a Texas Department of Homeland Security in which they have multiple committees — like the the Department of Agriculture is part of that committee — where they can combine. And they also utilize the joint intake centers, the fusion center, the intelligence centers. So they have an apparatus already in place to do counterintelligence on all the threats that are actually happening. It’s just, there’s no willpower and there’s no manpower to do so.
(56:33)
Abbot did declare the cartels are foreign terrorist organizations. By executive order, he declared that. Well, then where is the counterterrorism effort after that?
HOROWITZ: Well, kind of like when he banned mask mandates, and vaccine mandates, but then they just continued.
BLAIR: Right. So this is really a lot higher than what law enforcement can do. And that’s why others like Jaeson Jones, and everyone else, is telling everyone to designate them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations so we can bring the national security apparatus, all those agencies, we can bring them in. And we can utilize what the Department of Defense utilizes against Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
HOROWITZ: But they’re not going to cooperate. The feds aren’t going to cooperate.
What would a state, like, for example, let’s say you’re advising the Florida governor — and I say that because he’s one of the few that would probably want to do it, as opposed to others that don’t want to solve the problem because their donors support illegal immigration.
But let’s say you’re the governor of Florida, and you wanted to clamp down on all of the networks that funnel illegals into the state? What would you go about doing? So you declare them as terrorists. And then what? What can you do on your own?
(57:58)
BLAIR: I would develop a system based off, like a Florida Department of Homeland Security. And you’d have multiple heads, from each department, whether that’s Department of Agriculture, you’d also have it in the financial sector.
Just like how the federal government would do it to ISIS, you would create that somewhat same system in the state of Florida.
And then you’d be able to do threat network analysis, you’d have a fusion center. And then you would also break it up, just like here in Texas, we have 24 regions, and counsels of government, in Texas.
So they broke up Texas into 24 regions. And all you would have to do is have a joint intake center for intelligence sharing amongst all those different agencies, for each region. And it would go and feed into the [state] fusion center. And you’d be able to, in real time, fuse that with operations on the ground.
Again, also, with a state like Florida, since he has a lot of shore, I would also utilize the Florida military department and also his state guard.
(59:26)
Now, in regards to his state guard, they would have to, of course, be trained to do perimeter security, trained alongside Coast Guard since he is on the coast. But making sure that based off of how the threats coming into Florida, itself, typically use their avenues of approach from the ocean, that’s where he would have a constant base of either state guard, as just a perimeter defense.
So you would really do it as if the federal government is doing it in a foreign country, where you would have conventional and unconventional methods. The conventional would be the perimeter defense and perimeter security. And the unconventional would be the fusion of intel and other methods that we’d use in unconventional warfare. So it can be done.
(1:00:20)
HOROWITZ: It’s a robust effort. And you’re saying it requires manpower. I mean, Florida is more of a wealthy state. Other states — it would be a little bit tough.
I would like to see a red state alliance, where they work together, where they officially created something like that. […]
The lion’s share of this would go away if you denude them of the demand side for it. If you just make it clear that you cannot live here legally, and get anything done, it denudes the cartels of a lot of the demand side for it. Because what’s the point of trying to achieve an end, of living here, if you can’t live here? […]
(1:01:18)
If I had to put you in charge, or if we have a good administration a year from now, again, ninety percent of this you’ll take care of simply by making illegal immigration illegal. Just not inviting it. And certainly disinviting it, cutting off the magnets.
But in terms of assets. [In] a good administration that just wants to get rid of the drug trafficking as much as you can — in law enforcement you minimize, you’re never going to fully stop that — and certainly, the drones, the surveillance….
You talked a lot about the population insurgency, the cultural insurgency. But the kinetic force that they have, they generally don’t shoot at our agents — generally — but that sort of physical control they exert. What sort of assets do you feel we need, that we don’t have? Or is it all just mindset?
(1:02:13)
BLAIR: First and foremost, it’s mindset. Like I said, that statement from the Marine Corps, we operate based off of how we see. So, therefore, I need to change how they see.
And the only way that I can do that, the only way really you can do that, is through an objective military-style assessment of all of the threats that are emanating from our nation’s border. An objective assessment stating that the Mexican cartels are foreign terrorist organizations, and they have threat networks throughout the United States with tier 1 gangs. And they operate in a sort of hybrid warfare or irregular warfare type of environment.
And then you would also have to address the other networks that have a nexus to our southern border. And that would be Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would also include China. China has an unrestricted warfare against us, and are using the cartels and their threat networks in the United States as proxy fighters.
The same thing Mao did to his own people, China is doing to us. They’re making our societies addicted to opiods, destabilizing our environment, and making massive amounts of profit at the exact same time.
(1:03:34)
And so, just an actual understanding, and a true objective assessment of all the threats.
Then, once we actually understand the problem, then we can figure out all the tools that are necessary to stop it.
How do we stop grey zone conflict? How do we stop irregular warfare? What are our past successes? What are our past failures? Then go from there.
But really, I think the first thing is actual mindset itself. And then we would realize that we actually have everything we need to stop it, we just need to do it.
HOROWITZ: Exactly. It’s a two-bit thing, we could crush it if we wanted to. Not only don’t we want to, but our government is involved in this.
This is just lost on so many members of Congress on the right.
Wow, Ammon, I’ve been waiting for this for so many years. We’re going to have to do a couple more installments. […] Thank you for your service, Ammon, thank you for telling your story, thanks for standing strong and making the sacrifice to do the right thing, and hopefully others will follow your lead.
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Ammon Blair can be contacted at: Ablair@texaspolicy.com