Human smugglers along the southern border are openly advertising their services on Facebook and the social media company has fallen short on removing such content.
A plethora of user accounts have posted offers to facilitate illegal border crossings on the platform. Some even directly advertise how much they charge for the service. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), who took office in January, repeatedly alerted Facebook to the issue in general and to a number of specific posts of this kind, but most of them haven’t been removed, she said.
Facebook has so far failed to accommodate Cammack’s request for an in-person meeting to discuss the issue, she told The Epoch Times.
Given that some of the posts in question were paid advertisements, it raises the question of whether Facebook has been taking money, at least indirectly, from criminal cartels, which are known to control the human smuggling operations, Cammack said.
The Epoch Times alerted Facebook to about dozen posts and groups that appeared connected with the issue. Most, but not all of them, were subsequently removed.
“We prohibit content that offers or assists with human smuggling and remove it from our platform whenever we find it,” a Facebook spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.
Illegal border crossings skyrocketed this year, after dying down during the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic last year.
Information from Border Patrol and illegal immigrants themselves indicates that smugglers are tuned in to the American immigration policy climate and have used the Biden administration’s softer approach and rhetoric as an advertising tool. Specifically, the administration’s move to no longer turn back minors caught crossing illegally has been linked to a surge of unaccompanied minors taking the dangerous track to and across the border, often with disastrous consequences.
“I have witnessed some of the most horrific horrors, really, crimes against humanity that you can imagine,” Cammack said. “It is not just a national security crisis. This is a humanitarian crisis.”
BY PETR SVAB
