Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance is promising that a second Trump administration will crack down on social media giants that turn a blind eye to cartels' using their platforms to facilitate illegal activity, the New York Post reported on Friday.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to the U.S. southern border near San Diego, Vance said cartels are using social media platforms to run human trafficking operations and alleged the Biden administration has done nothing to curtail it.
"If you're not willing to use the power of law enforcement to tell these social media companies they have to stop ... facilitating drug trafficking and sex trafficking, then you're not fit to be a leader of this country," Vance said.
"We certainly believe that if the Department of Justice applied appropriate pressure on these social media companies, they could behave a lot better. And if they don't, there's gonna be hell to pay," he continued.
Since social media apps have become ubiquitous with teenagers, cartels have been using TikTok and Snapchat to entice U.S. citizens, and younger adults in particular, to aid them in their human trafficking operations, the Post reported. Large financial rewards are promised for those willing to pick up illegal migrants from border areas and move them throughout the country.
"It is ridiculous that you have American businesses facilitating drug trafficking and sex trafficking," Vance added.
The Committee on Homeland Security reported that cartels made $13 billion in 2021 alone from human smuggling.
"We have over a hundred juveniles in the last 18 months that we've apprehended in this county smuggling, all the way to the age of 13 and 12 years of age down here, driving grandma's car, a friend's car, or Mom and Dad's car down here, and it's social media," Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County, Arizona, told CBS News.
"They're recruited through WhatsApp and TikTok," Cochise County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Carol Kapas said, noting that smugglers are lured with the promise of $3,000 per person.
"Even from Georgia, New York, Washington state, Virginia, Florida. We had somebody who came from California, flew into Phoenix, rented the biggest vehicle that he could find, came down here, and got caught," Kapas said.
"It's cartel members and cartel organizations that are targeting anybody, specifically, gearing towards teens wanting money, if they can make a quick buck," she added.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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