Sara Carter Reports on the Disaster at the Border

CLAY: We’re joined now by Fox News contributor and longtime investigative journalist Sara Carter, who has a special called Dark Wars: The Border. Sara, let’s start right here. Breaking news that there may be some consequences finally for what’s going on with the border failures in the Biden administration. What can you tell us about those? How does it impact Secretary Mayorkas? Where are we standing right now as it pertains to the border and the Biden administration maybe acknowledging that it’s a disaster?

CARTER: Well, yes, because it is a disaster. And we know that for a long time there have been a number of complaints over the past year with the job performance of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Chief Chris Magnus. And now we know today, based on not only on Brandon Judd, who is confirming — he is the head of the National Border Patrol Council — but others that Chris Magnus is being forced out after less than one year on the job. And this has been a complaint that’s been ongoing for the year.

But, look, this just doesn’t fall on Chris Magnus. This is a Biden administration policy. It was the Biden administration who created this chaos at the border — and I believe purposefully — and Magnus is actually paying the price for that. I’d be interested to see in what he says if he says anything after he’s fired, because I believe that, you know, like all the Border Patrol agents that I’ve spoken with off the record, Buck, everybody who I’ve talked to while I’m on the border — and I was just there this week for the whole week — you know, they have been basically told to stand down.

I mean, they go in, they have the encounters, they make the apprehensions, and then they’re asked to release people into the country. So they’re basically a part of the process of illegal immigration. And this is what the Biden administration has created, and now we’re seeing some action here, because I think the pressure from the American people and — particularly the pressure from people living along the border, and that even comes from Democrats that are along the border, Henry Cuellar is being one of them, you know, speaking to the Biden administration, saying that his constituents just can’t take it anymore.

And the number of deaths that have happened across this country because of illicit counterfeit pills made with fentanyl — and over 170,000 deaths, Americans losing their lives — I think that the Biden administration finally said, “Okay, well, we got to do something here. We got to act like we’re doing something,” and they started with Chris Magnus, who had a really terrible reputation. Unfortunately, among the Border Patrol agents, they felt that he just never paid any attention, never did his job, was always asleep at the wheel, and so now he’s out. It’ll be interesting to see who takes his place.

BUCK: Hey, Sara, it’s Buck. You know, you and I have known each other now for over a decade, and I know when you were doing coverage of Afghanistan, you were in Afghanistan. You were on the front lines there as a journalist, and you’ve been down covering the border. You’re a fluent Spanish speaker for many years. You’ve been down in Central America seeing the beginnings of the caravans and you have a lot of familiarity with the cartels.

CARTER: Right.

BUCK: Just give everybody listening because, you know, they’re seeing some of the stories, obviously, that are day-in-and-day out in their communities about the fentanyl overdoses, about, you know, a $5 million or a $10 million fentanyl seizure is just another day at the border. How powerful are the cartels right now and how much are they taking advantage of this Biden administration open border?

CARTER: Oh, it’s horrific, Buck and Travis. It’s horrific. I mean, to say the least. I’ve spent time, you know, and as you well listed out a lot of my time on the border over 18 years, working on the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as, I believe, the nexus between having a chaotic open border and the nexus with terrorism and people that want to enter our country under the radar, which the border is a perfect place, especially with so many loopholes and being so porous, you know, right now. But I can tell you this: If you look at just fentanyl in and of itself and what the cartels have been able to amass, hundreds of billions of dollars.

I’m talking the Sinaloa cartel. It doesn’t matter. Chapo is in custody here, but the Sinaloa cartel is running and raring to go because we have allowed them to, because we are allowing them to not only traffic humans — which seems to be their biggest bang for their buck right now, trafficking of humans, young children — but also fentanyl, which can be brought in. And you made it very clear, hundreds of thousands of pills, millions of pills being brought into this country. And what we get, what we actually apprehend at the border is just a small percentage of what is being transported into the United States.

Not only that, but we’re looking at our adversaries, nations like China. This is what I talk about in Dark Wars: The Border. It’s a podcast series where our second part of a series is about to come out this week. The focus is on China and it’s how our adversaries like China are moving precursor chemicals into Mexico, into Central America, and allowing the drug cartels to basically use those precursors to manufacture the fentanyl to then ship these counterfeit pills into the United States. And I want to tell you, this is not about addiction, folks. I want everyone to understand this.

This is about setting loose counterfeit pills that look like Percocet. They look like any kind of opioid that you would get from your doctor, Adderall. Other types of medicines that are now out on our streets. And people are taking them, and they are dying, and they are not expecting to die. And they are not expecting to be taking fentanyl. They’re not expecting to be taking these pills. So this is actually murder. And if you talk to people in the DEA — in my podcast series, I talked to people like Daniel Hoffman, who is former head of this. He was the CIA station chief.

I talked to Gordon Chang, who’s a China expert. I go out on the border. I’m on the beat with our Border Patrol agents, with our Texas Department of Public Safety, with our local law enforcement, as they try with their minimal resources — and you both know this, how they work day in and day out, putting their lives on the line with their hands tied behind their back because an administration is refusing to do its job to protect the American public. And that’s what they see. But despite that, they go out there every single day and night.

I was just out there last night with them working until 2 a.m., you know, out on out in the field, watching them try to interdict people that are 90 miles in already. These are the people that want to evade law enforcement and the danger that they put themselves in as they try to apprehend these people. It’s a complex issue. It’s affecting every single American. It’s not just a border issue, Buck. It is an issue that every single American and every mom and dad needs to be paying attention to. We have lost so many young people — and so many young people are losing their lives coming in.

It’s actually a tragedy all the way around. We also have a humanitarian crisis. So, that’s why this project is so important to me. You know, I feel it’s a place where people can go on their own time, where they can learn, where they can educate themselves and where I can take them on that journey with me. You know, it’s hard. You can’t do it on television in two or three minutes. You can’t always do it in a short interview. But I can develop a format, Dark Wars: The Border, and give them that opportunity to go on this journey with me and really understand how devastatingly dangerous the border is.

CLAY: Can’t wait to check it out. Sara, we appreciate you giving us the time. The documentary Dark Wars: The Border. She’s Fox News contributor, longtime investigative journalist Sara Carter. If you want to know more about the border, you need to hit that. Thank you, Sara.

CARTER: Thank you so much.