This number cannot be correct I think. There are too many zeros. I was sitting in my studio, getting ready to go on the air and deliver a report on how much money Mexican drug cartels have made annually since Joe Biden took office. In the research materials in front of me there was a figure of $13,000,000,000.

This is thirteen billion dollar. with one B..

There’s an old saying about the difference between a million and a billion dollars that many people (myself included) have a hard time understanding. As the saying goes, one million seconds is 11 days. A. billion second is approximately 32 years.

Cartels made a billion dollars under Biden-Harris administration’s open border policies 13 times more. Surprisingly, this figure was only $500 million in 2018, when President Trump was in office. (Recently the New York Times He published a news article containing this figure, although it was hidden in the 17th paragraph.)

When it comes to the border crisis, I worry that Americans are becoming numb to the huge numbers we hear about every day, especially in the heady weeks leading up to the 2024 election.

When Senator JD Vance tells us: During the recent vice presidential debate that “20 to 25 million illegal immigrants” live in this country or that the Department of Homeland Security has lost “320,000 children” at our southern border, it is easy to hear these words, Think of the people who are suffering.

During my three decades as a journalist, I have frequently reported on the true human cost of illegal immigration and the horrific crimes that result.

I’ve seen gangs of illegal immigrants come right over the border without anything resembling a background check. In the summer of 2024, I was among the first American journalists to take a deep dive into the ultra-violent Venezuelan prison gang known as the Tren de Aragua, which is currently engaged in crimes such as kidnapping, extortion, money laundering, and illegal drug trafficking. , earning them the nickname “MS-13 on steroids.”

As I say in my new book, “Incoming: On the Front Lines of the Left’s Battle for Truth,” What I’ve seen has convinced me that this election is the most important we’ve ever seen.

On one hand, there is the woman who served as Joe Biden’s “border czar” during the most horrific period of illegal immigration in our nation’s history.

As much as Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to get through this election “with a bang,” we can’t stand four more years of open borders, avoiding the press at all costs while they tell blatant lies to the American people.

The human cost has already been enormous. In February 2024, Laken Riley was brutally murdered by an illegal immigrant named Jose Ibarra. On June 16, police arrested an illegal alien named Victor Martinez Hernandez for the murder of Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was raped and killed while jogging in Baltimore.

A day later, on June 17, a machete-wielding illegal alien from Ecuador was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in broad daylight in a New York City park. That same summer day, police in Houston, Texas, discovered the body of a 12-year-old girl named Jocelyn Nungaray in a creek.

It didn’t take long to figure out that two illegal aliens named Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Peña were responsible.

In saner times, these stories would top major publications for days. But for Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and (you may have forgotten) Joe Biden, these people are just inconvenient statistics. Fortunately, there is hope on the other side.

Every time I cover illegal immigration, I’m reminded of what it was like to finally hear Donald J. Trump say his now-famous words in the lobby of Trump Tower.

“They bring drugs. They bring crime. They are rapists.” In the years since, as I have investigated the true human cost of illegal immigration, I have come to believe that President Trump may have been a little too moderate in his assessment of our situation.

Our country is currently in great danger. The millions of illegal immigrants who have flooded into the country during Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ four years in the White House are making themselves known, and people are suffering because of it.

We need someone with a real plan, not empty promises. I’ve spent much of my career reporting on the devastating human cost of illegal immigration, and I know that solving this problem isn’t about political slogans or partisan bickering.

Securing our borders is about taking serious and effective action to enforce the law and protect American citizens.

Whether it’s finishing the wall or busting the cartels, we need leadership that sees the border crisis for what it really is: a matter of life and death for many families. We don’t have the luxury of ignoring this any longer.

The lives of American citizens depend on it.

This article is adapted from Bianca de la Garza’s upcoming book. “Incoming: On the Front Lines of the Left’s Battle for Truth”; Copyright 2024 by Post Hill Press.