Criminal cartels will keep order at the border to maximize their profits: Yuma Border Patrol Chief

While many officials have warned that the end of Title 42 Thursday night will usher in chaos at the southern border and a surge of illegal migration, former Yuma Sector Border Patrol Chief Chris Clem suggested that order will be maintained by an unlikely source: Mexican cartels.

Clem, who has twenty-seven years of federal law enforcement experience, argued that because chaos will hinder their operations, cartels will keep things under control to ensure they are able to continue functioning.



"People that are really orchestrating this do not want to make it any more painful," Clem said in an interview with the Daily Mail. "There's money to be made every time a person crosses the border ... If they make it a big disaster by having disorganized chaos, there's going to be a response.

He suggested that the cartels "have adjusted their business model to handle a few thousand a day," and that, "if you have too many or cause too much chaos, it's going to hurt profits."

Clem went on to note, however, that if his theory proved incorrect and there was a massive surge of illegal migrants, the response from the US side would be ready.
 

"I think it is very well coordinated," he said of the American border patrol effort, "not because of the administration, because of the people that are running the agencies. It is the men and women on the ground."

The Biden administration has beefed up its efforts to quell a potential surge, as have border states. Texas has taken the strongest approach, deploying a new "Tactical Border Force" to assist the thousands of agents already hard at work protecting the country.

Reporting from the border have revealed that thousands of migrants are still making their way from Mexico into the United States. Whether the post-Title 42 surge occurs as many have predicted remains to be seen.