Highlights from our interview with Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, retired U.S. Border Patrol Agent, U.S. Air Force veteran, and Sheriff of Terrell County, Texas.
Lone Star Standard: How has illegal immigration at the border changed in Terrell County in recent years?
Cleveland: Let me break it down for you. So, historically we get about a thousand arrests for illegal crossings a year. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the southern border as a whole. With that said, we are the busiest station between Del Rio and El Paso, Texas which is about 600 miles off the border. And the reason there’s not a lot of activity out here in the Big Bend region is because there’s not a lot of infrastructure south of us in Mexico to facilitate a large flow. Our infrastructure to facilitate a large flow out of this area is in the north in the Big Bend area. Let me tell you about the problem since the Biden administration took over, and I don’t like getting real political. I was hired under President Clinton, worked for President Bush through the Obama administration, President Trump, and now President Biden. What I can say is that those first four administrations all contributed to border security. They all built fence, they all added infrastructure, they all added technology and more border patrol agents. This current administration is doing absolutely nothing. To get back to those apprehensions, I want to compare that historical number of about a thousand to what we’ve seen in the last three years. The first year President Biden was in office, we had a 286% increase in illegal alien apprehensions. Our highest watermark was fiscal year 2022. And we had a 217% increase in illegal alien apprehensions and about a 467% increase in got-aways. Last year’s numbers dropped, but they were still higher than the historical number. Historically, we had one death a year in Terrell County. The last three years, we’ve had a total of 37 people that have died in our country trying to cross this portion of the border.
Lone Star Standard: Have the cartels infiltrated communities across America?
Cleveland: There are definitely kids that are being trafficked. The drugs are going everywhere and I’ll tell you what, since I have been Sheriff, I’ve had to go to various Texas counties to extradite smugglers back to Terrell County. Then, they don’t show up for court. I went out to Nacogdoches. There are illegal immigrants everywhere. There are a lot. And I was raised on the border and have spent my entire life, other than my time in the military and my time at the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington D.C., on the US-Mexico border. I’ve gone to Nacogdoches and Texarkana to pick up another guy and there are illegals everywhere. I’ve gone to speak at fentanyl rallies down in Surfside Beach, Texas, up in Little Rock, Arkansas and there are illegals there as well. Even traveling up to D.C., you will see illegal immigrants. Our economy relies heavily on them, Brad. They will build our houses, many of them slaughter our beef, cows, and poultry. That’s who does a lot of the menial labor within the United States. But they’re not integrated in our community. And when you have these pockets of illegal immigrants, you’re going to have those bad actors that are part of the cartels that are helping smuggle the drugs being distributed across America. And the cartel activity is not just in cities. It’s suburbs and small towns like Sanderson, Texas. So the cartels are everywhere, they are in every state throughout the United States. They truly are.
Lone Star Standard: How do the cartels collect their money from helping smuggle people across the border?
Cleveland: Certainly. There's different apps that are out there to send money where it used to be primarily Western Union. They stopped using that once the government started to, not crack down, but track the money and trace it making it more difficult for them to use that avenue. They started using gift cards, pre-loaded cards, and they continue to evolve as we continue to evolve to catch them. There’s legitimate people that come from Mexico although it probably would be a bit harder for an illegal alien, although they still can, set up legitimate businesses and launder money through that. We catch illegal aliens in our country that are coming down to pick up other illegal aliens because they have to pay off their crossing fee to the cartels. They still have to work off the other half. So, they’re forced into driving out there to pick up other illegal immigrants. Or maybe they are working for legitimate businesses to help continue to pay off their debt to the cartels. But the cartels also have businesses that may be set up to help launder some of that money. So, it’s all linked together and they have been doing it for years.
Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland is the sheriff of Terrell County. He previously served for 26 years as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. He is a member of Coalition Against Cartels, a national effort to expose the illegal operations of cartels in U.S. communities.
This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Listen to the full discussion here: https://texas-talks.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-26-thad-cleveland.
