More than one hundred visitors and residents in the Texas border city of McAllen attended a rally and march to the border wall to shed light on the dangers of child trafficking. One guest speaker at the event, Karla Jacinto, recounted her story as a victim of child trafficking at the age of 12.
Retired ICE-Homeland Security Investigations Agent Victor Avila, who survived a brutal cartel attack in Mexico, also spoke to the crowd about child trafficking cases he investigated during his career.
The event, attended by more than 100 residents and visitors to McAllen, opened with an invocation by Dr. Nilsa Alvarez who recounted the open cases of missing and exploited migrants. Dr. Alvarez asked the crowd to pray for those victims and their safe return to desperate family members. The event culminated with a march to the border wall gate.
Karla Jacinto shared intimate details of being a victim of child trafficking after becoming enamored with a man who later forced her into prostitution in Mexico at the age of 12. She says a dysfunctional home environment that included physical and sexual abuse made her an easy target for exploitation.
She said the man she initially thought she loved waited three months to finally reveal his plans for her. The man, she says, forced her into prostitution and at one time forced her to work as a prostitute even while she was pregnant. After delivering her child, she says the baby was taken from her.
She says she was faced with being forced to cross illegally into the United States by her captor on multiple occasions. Luckily, she avoided being trafficked across the border to be exploited further. She was ultimately rescued by a person she credits with helping her to find the strength and recognize her self-worth as a human being. She now advocates on behalf of victims and shares her story to bring awareness to the issue.
Victor Avila, a retired ICE investigator, survived an attack by Los Zetas Cartel gunmen in Mexico in 2011. Avila was shot 3 times in the attack that killed his partner, HSI investigator Jaime Zapata. Avila told the attendees of the march about the process traffickers use to exploit children.
“There is force, fraud, and coercion involved in human trafficking, sometimes it’s one, others it’s all three” Avila explained.
The former federal agent says in one case he investigated, human traffickers killed and disposed of a newborn child at a brothel in New York by encasing the baby in concrete. The body was kept where the victims could see it.
“Think about how that affects the victims, the breakdown of the psyche, the mental, physical, emotional state of them,” Avila stated. “People sometimes think victims are shackled, no, they are mentally coerced.”
The event was coordinated by Landon Starbuck, an artist and advocate for ending child trafficking and exploitation. Starbuck told Breitbart Texas she is concerned about the lack of advocacy for the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children crossing our borders.
Breitbart News regularly reports on the horrors of child trafficking, child sex trafficking, and other forms of human trafficking.
Texas Gov. Abbott extends generous offer to Border Patrol agents who could be punished by Biden administration
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Sunday that he would hire any Border Patrol agent punished by the Biden administration over the controversy involving mounted agents and Haitian migrants last week.
Biden promised on Friday that mounted Border Patrol agents “will pay” over the debunked claim that agents used whips, ropes, or lassos to abuse Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas.
Biden’s comment came after the photographer who snapped the infamous images of the mounted Border Patrol agents spoke out, saying he did not witness what Democrats and the media claimed.
What did Abbott say?
Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Abbott promised to hire any Border Patrol agent punished by the Biden administration.
“What the president said — going after the Border Patrol, who were risking their lives and working so hard to try to secure the border — if he takes any action against them whatsoever, I have worked side by side with those Border Patrol agents,” Abbott began. “I want them to know something: iIf they are at risk of losing their job at a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas.”
“I will hire you to help Texas secure our border,” the Republican governor promised.
Abbott, who characterized Biden as having “scapegoated” the Border Patrol, said Border Patrol agents would not have been in that position “had the Biden administration enforced the immigration laws and secured the border.”
The Texas governor claimed Border Patrol agents told him the flood of migrants into Del Rio only stopped after he took action, which he said was necessary because the Biden administration has abdicated their constitutional responsibilities.
“Because the Biden administration is refusing to do its duty to enforce the laws of the United States, they have left Texas in no position other than for us to step up and do what we have to do,” Abbott said.
“You know, you mentioned the people in Del Rio and the way that Del Rio was overrun by a population about the same size of Del Rio that have been coming across the border illegally. As governor, I’m not gonna let that happen,” he continued. “I am going to step up and do whatever I have to do to make sure that I protect the people of Del Rio, as well as all these other communities in the state of Texas that the Biden administration is ignoring.”
“The people in South Texas, they are angry about the Biden administration for ignoring them, for abetting them,” Abbott said. “The Biden administration cares far more about people who are not in this country than he does of the people— American citizens who live in this country.”
Furious Border Patrol agents spoke out against Biden after his Friday remarks. One agent told Fox News that Biden “just started a war with Border Patrol.”
“I see the administration wants to fry our agents,” that agent said.