Cartels, UN, and NGOs Fuel U.S. Border Crisis – A Report from Colombia

From the Center for Immigration Studies

A new Center for Immigration Studies video report uncovers one of the world’s most organized human smuggling operations. It operates out of a northwest Colombia village named Capurgana and is controlled by a paramilitary organization called the Gaitanist Self Defense Force of Colombia (a/k/a the Clan del Golfo), which controls the area with an iron fist.

Todd Bensman, the Center’s national security fellow, spent nearly two weeks investigating the human smuggling routes from Colombia to Panama’s Darien Gap. His trip included hours of travel by boat across the Uraba Gulf to a cartel-controlled landing site in Colombia. He also visited a UN run/cartel-controlled staging area, speaking with migrants and NGO staff and even members of the cartel.

The video highlights:

Details about the Gaitanista Gulf Clan’s control of the smuggling routes.
Information on the migrant population passing through the Darien Gap with the aid of the cartel and the NGOs – over two million migrants from over 150 nations, including hundreds on the terrorist watch list, in recent years.
Who makes it all possible? Government officials, banks, NGOs, and the United Nations.
Footage of migrants traveling through Colombia’s Capurgana village to the Darien Gap en route to the U.S.
An assessment of President Mulino’s Darien Gap closure initiative.

By CIS on October 2, 2024

(0:10) You are seeing the most well-oiled industrialized human smuggling assembly line machine anywhere on the planet. It roars all day and night far beyond American awareness, in and all around this far northwest Colombia village named Capurgana.

(0:34) As far away as it is, this people-moving machine in far northwestern Colombia matters to the American public because it has mainlined nearly two million foreign nationals, like these, the last few years into American cities. But, also ones like these, including hundreds on the US terrorism watch list and criminal aliens among total strangers from 150 nations, like China.

Boatload by boatload. Across the Gulf of Uraba and into the famous Darien Gap migration chokepoint to Panama, and on to the US southern border.

(1:20) They arrive on buses and taxis in towns on one side of the Gulf, and then boat across to towns on the other side and head into the Darien Gap. A flow that carries suspected terrorists, like these Afghans Panama recently discovered and pulled off the trails on its side, or like this Somali terrorist a few years ago, and Chinese nationals and strangers from every nation adversarial to the United States.

(1:49) At issue is that none of this should be happening right now on the Gap’s Colombia side. But the machine is running just as strong today as it was before a new regional deal where Panama and Colombia are supposed to close the Darien Gap for the first time ever.

(2:10) On July 1, 2024, the new president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, with the supposed essential backing of the Biden-Harris White House and Colombia, launched an unprecedented new policy to choke off the Darien Gap, which, with any actual follow-through, would dramatically improve U.S. national and border security.

The plan relied heavily on Colombia’s partnership and a signed American agreement on July 1 to support that closure plan financially and diplomatically.

But, the Center for Immigration Studies went to Colombia to gauge how it was all working out and found, instead of closure on the Colombia side, a stunning reality.

(2:54) A tight-knit partnership between a paramilitary organization called the Gaitanist Self-Defense Force of Colombia – also known as the Clan del Golfo – that with an iron fist rules all that goes on in this region, and the Colombian government, banks, the United Nations, and a wide range of non-governmental migration advocacy groups.

Together, the legitimate and illegitimate run a vast, well-oiled human smuggling machine that pumps humanity to the American border, unimpeded, profitably – and wittingly – for all involved.

(3:34) It all starts with the Gaitanistas, the Clan del Golfo – so named for its control of the Uraba Gulf’s smuggling lanes to the Panamanian border and dozens of towns and villages that line the Gulf of Uraba.

In 2023, top U.S. law enforcement officials, announcing the extradition of a top Clan leader to New York State, described the paramilitary group as the most violent and powerful criminal organization in all of Colombia:

“…To commit brutal acts of violence, terror, and retaliation…to exert control over vast territorial regions of Colombia and its people…The CDC used military tactics and weapons to control the most lucrative cocaine trafficking region within Colombia…Its paramilitary organization’s thousands of soldiers, including sicarios or hitmen as they’re called, murdered, assaulted, kidnapped, tortured, and assassinated….”

(4:41) In Panama recently, the director general of the country’s National Border Service (SENAFRONT) explained to the Center that a major diplomatic push was underway to get Colombia on board with its Darien Gap closure plan, which includes going after the Gaitanista Gulf Clan.

Two months into the Panama shutdown plan, no impact was evident on the Colombia side. In fact, quite the opposite.

(5:08) The Center for Immigration Studies went to look and found the Gulf Clan so proud of its humming machine that it granted access to a clandestine boat dock and one of two camps in Acandi.

“This is a primary staging area for people that are heading into the Darien Gap into Panama. This is the dock, and behind me, you’re seeing immigrants that are actually loading right now as we speak on their way to the trailheads. The trailheads are probably still a good 20 or 30 miles from here. There is a process in place – a very organized process – because so many hundreds of thousands of people have come through here over the past few years to take advantage of Joe Biden’s policy of creating a super highway out of the Darien Gap. Very organized activity. You’ve got their equipment for traveling into the Gap, which has already arrived by an earlier boat. They’ll be matched with their tickets and… Okay, another boat has just come in.

“Just a non-stop assembly line. Very well organized. The town assembly has organized a conveyor belt assembly line, labor force. There’s also police who are overseeing this operation. We’re seeing welcome signs and migrant camps. Very well-oiled.”

(7:03) The Center found marital bliss between the Clan, the Colombian government, and even banks.

(7:20) With permitted access in Acandi, the Center toured a Gulf Clan-controlled migrant camp, though no filming was allowed inside. Operatives control access on the perimeter. So, who was allowed inside?

Colombian banks and Western Union providing money wiring services, nonprofit groups providing food, medicine, and all manner of assistance to immigrants arriving and departing for obvious trips into the nearby Darien Gap.

(8:07) At the Clan-controlled ferry boat docks in Necoclí and Turbo, where migrants board, Colombian federal migration officers check papers and let obvious immigrants board Clan-controlled ferries over to staging areas.

Municipal officials charge a toll tax on each and every migrant before they can board. All worked openly together for the common interest aim of moving mass volumes of totally obvious migrants that everyone involved well knows will illegally breach the next six nations and then the American border.

(8:58) In and around the UN and NGOs, Gulf cartel operatives charge immigrants as much as $300 per head cash for permission to buy a ferry ticket and cross the Gulf … then hundreds more for a guide once they arrive in towns like Capurganá and Acandi.

They tried to charge even me as my taxi entered the ferry boat terminal in Turbo, stopping the taxi, but then looking in through the window and determining that I was no immigrant and letting us through.

(9:51) Much in the way of U.S. national and homeland security is riding on Panama’s plan to close the Darien Gap. The Biden/Harris White House was supposed to help Panama pressure its ally Colombia to shut this down. Promised American money for deportation flights out of Panama hasn’t showed up, forcing Panama to keep its side of the border open still.

(10:15) But the Clan del Golfo, the United Nations, migrant help groups, the Colombian government – and thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants who will all end up living in America – are still on the machine.

All for one and one for all here in northwestern Colombia.

I’m Todd Bensman, Center for Immigration Studies in Colombia.

Panama Tribal Chiefs Swamped by Migrants Slam US, UN, NGOs

Progress Report: Has Panama Closed the Notorious ‘Darien Gap’ Mass Migration Route to the U.S. Border as Promised?

Excerpts from a CIS Conversation with Director General Jorge Gobea, head of Panama’s National Border Service

Panama Border Security Chief Says Many U.S.-Bound Terror Suspects Caught in Darien Gap Region

Biden-Harris open border is destroying an indigenous tribe’s land and way of life

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illegal immigration

US Notes 2.5 million illegals out and counting

Published on December 13, 2025

Todayville

MxM News

President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security is marking what officials are calling a landmark moment in U.S. immigration enforcement, announcing Wednesday that more than 2.5 million illegal aliens have now left the country since Trump returned to the Oval Office in January. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said the surge reflects a sweeping, sustained crackdown driven by Immigration and Customs Enforcement teams that — according to internal tallies — have already removed more than 605,000 illegal aliens, most of whom were facing criminal charges or carrying prior convictions. Nearly two million more have opted to self-deport, a wave Noem attributes to stepped-up enforcement and the administration’s aggressive public messaging. She again urged those still in the country illegally to use the government’s CBP Home app, which offers a free one-way flight and a $1,000 stipend to expedite departure.

Senior DHS officials say arrests have climbed as well, with almost 600,000 illegal aliens taken into custody since January 20. “Illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now,” DHS official McLaughlin said this week. “They know if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”

The administration argues the impact is being felt far beyond immigration courts and detention facilities, pointing to the U.S. housing market as one of the clearest signs of change. For six straight months, DHS says not a single illegal alien has been released into the interior from the southern border — a dramatic shift after years of mass inflows under President Biden. That decline, they say, is finally filtering into rent and home-price data after years of punishing increases.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner said Americans have now seen four consecutive months of rent decreases — the first sustained drop in years — as fewer illegal aliens compete for housing. Vice President JD Vance emphasized the connection even more bluntly: “The connection between illegal immigration and skyrocketing housing costs is as clear as day. We are proud to be moving in the right direction. Still so much to do.”

Research abroad and at home backs up the administration’s argument. Economists in Denmark released findings earlier this year showing that a one-percentage-point rise in local immigration over a five-year period drove private rental prices up roughly 6 percent and home prices up about 11 percent. The Center for Immigration Studies presented similar data to Congress last year, with researcher Steven Camarota testifying that a 5-percentage-point increase in a metro area’s recent-immigrant share was tied to a 12-percent rise in rent for U.S.-born households.

As DHS leaders frame it, Trump’s second-term enforcement machine is reshaping both border policy and household budgets — an approach they say is finally delivering relief to Americans who spent years squeezed by soaring housing costs and unchecked migration.

illegal immigration

EXCLUSIVE: Canadian groups, First Nation police support stronger border security

Published on December 12, 2025

Todayville

First Nation police chiefs join Texas Department of Public Safety marine units to patrol the Rio Grande River in Hidalgo County, Texas. L-R: Dwayne Zacharie, President of the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association, Ranatiiostha Swamp, Chief of Police of the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez, Jamie Tronnes, Center for North American Prosperity and Security, Goliad County Sheriff Roy Boyd. Photo: Bethany Blankley for The Center Square

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

Despite Canadian officials arguing that the “Canada-U.S. border is the best-managed and most secure border in the world,” some Canadian groups and First Nation tribal police chiefs disagree.

This week, First Nation representatives traveled to Texas for the first time in U.S.-Canadian history to find ways to implement stronger border security measures at the U.S.-Canada border, including joining an Operation Lone Start Task Force, The Center Square exclusively reported.

Part of the problem is getting law enforcement, elected officials and the general public to understand the reality that Mexican cartels and transnational criminal organizations are operating in Canada; another stems from Trudeau administration visa policies, they argue.

When it comes to public perception, “If you tell Canadians we have a cartel problem, they’ll laugh at you. They don’t believe it. If you tell them we have a gang problem, they will absolutely agree with you 100%. They don’t think that gangs and cartels are the same thing. They don’t see the Hells Angels as equal to the Sinaloa Cartel because” the biker gang is visible, wearing vests out on the streets and cartel operatives aren’t, Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center of North American Prosperity and Security, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview.

The center is a US-based project of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, the largest think tank in Canada. Tronnes previously served as a special assistant to the cabinet minister responsible for immigration and has a background in counterterrorism. She joined First Nation police chiefs to meet with Texas law enforcement and officials this week.

Another Canadian group, Future Borders Coalition, argues, “Canada has become a critical hub for transnational organized crime, with networks operating through its ports, banks, and border communities.” The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Mexican cartels control the fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine business in Canada, partnering with local gangs like the Hells Angels and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked actors, who launder profits through casinos, real estate, and shell companies in Vancouver and Toronto, Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and others said at a coalition event prior to First Nation police chiefs and Tronnes coming to Texas.

“The ’Ndrangheta (Italian Mafia) maintains powerful laundering and import operations in Ontario and Quebec, while MS-13 and similar Central American gangs facilitate human smuggling and enforcement. Financial networks tied to Hezbollah and other Middle Eastern groups support laundering and logistics for these criminal alliances,” the coalition reports.

“Together, they form interconnected, technology-driven enterprises that exploit global shipping, cryptocurrency, and AI-enabled communications to traffic whatever yields profit – narcotics, weapons, tobacco, or people. Taking advantage of Canada’s lenient disclosure laws, fragmented jurisdictions, and weak cross-border coordination, these groups have embedded themselves within legitimate sectors, turning Canada into both a transit corridor and safe haven for organized crime,” the coalition reports.

Some First Nation reservations impacted by transnational crime straddle the U.S.-Canada border. One is the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation, located in Ontario, Quebec, and in two upstate New York counties, where human smuggling and transnational crime is occurring, The Center Square reported. Another is the Tsawwassen First Nation (TWA) Reservation, located in a coastal region south of Vancouver in British Columbia stretching to Point Roberts in Washington state, which operates a ferry along a major smuggling corridor.

Some First Nation reservations like the TWA are suffering from CCP organized crime, Tronnes said. Coastal residents observe smugglers crossing their back yards, going through the reserve; along Canada’s western border, “a lot of fentanyl is being sent out to Asia but it’s also being made in Canada,” Tronnes said.

Transnational criminal activity went largely unchecked under the Trudeau government, during which “border security, national security and national defense were not primary concerns,” Tronnes told The Center Square. “It’s not to say they weren’t concerns, but they weren’t top of mind concerns. The Trudeau government preferred to focus on things like climate change, international human rights issues, a feminist foreign policy type of situation where they were looking more at virtue signaling rather than securing the country.”

Under the Trudeau administration, the greatest number of illegal border crossers, including Canadians, and the greatest number of known, suspected terrorists (KSTs) were reported at the U.S.-Canada border in U.S. history, The Center Square first reported. They include an Iranian with terrorist ties living in Canada and a Canadian woman who tried to poison President Donald Trump, The Center Square reported.

“Had it been a priority for the government to really crack down and provide resources for national security,” federal, provincial and First Nation law enforcement would be better equipped, funded and staffed, Tronnes said. “They would have better ways to understand what’s really happening at the border.”

In February, President Donald Trump for the first time in U.S. history declared a national emergency at the northern border and ordered U.S. military intervention. Months later, his administration acknowledged the majority of fentanyl and KSTs were coming from Canada, The Center Square reported.

Under a new government and in response to pressure from Trump, Canada proposed a $1.3 billion border plan. However, more is needed, the groups argue, including modernizing border technology and an analytics infrastructure, reforming disclosure and privacy rules to enable intelligence sharing, and recognizing and fully funding First Nation police, designating them as essential services and essential to border security.

“National security doesn’t exist without First Nation policing at the border,” Dwayne Zacharie, First Nations Chiefs of Police president, told The Center Square.