My heart breaks for the unaccompanied children, but officials told us that 80 percent of the people entering the country illegally are not women and children—they are males over the age of 14.
It is this latter group that is the source of much of the incoming violence, particularly with their increasing involvement in drug cartels and transnational gangs such as MS-13. These organizations profit from exploiting innocent people desperate for a better life into paying thousands of dollars to be transported into the United States.
MS-13 is a brutal international gang with more than 50,000 members—with thousands of members throughout the United States. This ugly and dangerous business has fueled violence on both sides of the border.
By failing to secure our border, the United States government has enabled and empowered a criminal enterprise made of drug cartels and human traffickers that spans our continent.