Mike Garcia: ‘This is a direct byproduct of the open borders’Discusses Illegal Marijuana Grows Raid with FOX LA
Washington,
June 11, 2021
Tags:
National Security
Representative Mike Garcia (CA-25) appeared on FOX LA to discuss the recent raid to combat the illegal marijuana grows in the Antelope Valley.
One of the many facilities torn down during the raid generated an estimated $50 million a year in revenue – the grow itself was operating at essentially no cost. “They are in many cases stealing our land, stealing our water, and using indentured servants,” said Garcia. “This is a lot of money going to the cartels and the bad players and it is not staying in our local communities.” Garcia, who has been actively working to combat this problem since he first came to Congress in May of 2020, shared that he was proud of the progress made. “It was very gratifying to see it come to a head yesterday. We took a big chunk out of this and we are going to continue this operation until the problems are gone,” said Garcia.“…This is one of the moments where you’re proud to be able to be a part of a multi-agency, multi-county effort and see it come to fruition.” Garcia thanked L.A County Sheriff Alex Villanueva for taking action on the problem as well as the other local law enforcement officers, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, and all law enforcement entities involved for their work to combat the problem. “The way you win is what we just did and what we will continue to do,” said Garcia. “We just flipped the risk vs. reward matrix. There used to be unlimited rewards with almost no risk when we weren’t enforcing the laws. And now what we are seeing is a tremendous risk – they are losing all their inventory, people are going to jail, firearms are being confiscated, folks are being charged with federal crimes as well as felonies and misdemeanors.” Garcia urged that local enforcement must continue to enforce the laws and combat the illegal grows and bad actors running the operations. “Effectively, we need to make it rain longer than they can tread water. And when we do that the problem will go away,” said Garcia. He noted that the current lack of border security has fueled this problem. Garcia explained that the vast number of those working the illegal grows are illegal immigrants who are serving as indentured servants to the transnational criminal organizations that are running the majority of the illegal grows. “This is a direct byproduct of the open borders that this administration has,” said Garcia.“…We absolutely need to secure our borders. We need to get the resources to our law enforcement, the DEA agents, ATF agents as well and we will eradicate this problem in short order.” Click here to watch the full interview. Click here to learn more about the recent raid to combat the illegal marijuana grows. Click here to watch Garcia speak in May with FOX LA about the illegal marijuana grows. |