Attorney General Merrick Garland admits he has NO ‘theory’ about why China is illegally sending people into the US to set up marijuana growing operations as the number of Chinese migrants arrested at the border rises 7,000%

Attorney General Merrick Garland said he has no idea what’s behind the flood of Chinese nationals trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico in recent months, many of whom are growing illegal marijuana in the United States.

“Do you have a theory about why the Chinese are sending people illegally to our country to set up these growing operations?” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Garland during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

“I don’t have a theory,” the attorney general said.

‘Normally I develop a theory by learning the facts from the different research assignments or entities that look at it. So right now I don’t have a theory. There are many obvious theories, including the profit motive.”

“These transnational criminal organizations operate all over the world to make money wherever they can, but I can’t tell you what the specific motivation is here.”

Collins’ state of Maine is the latest frontier in the black market marijuana industry, but the phenomenon extends across the country.

In February, 50 US lawmakers wrote to Garland demanding answers about China’s role in the US’s illegal marijuana trade.

“Do you have a theory about why the Chinese are sending people illegally to our country to set up these growing operations?” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Garland during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing

“We are deeply concerned by reports from across the country about Chinese nationals and organized crime growing marijuana on farmland in the United States,” the bipartisan group wrote.

Many of the Chinese money brokers who support illegal marijuana farms are also involved in the fentanyl trade.

A leaked 2023 Department of Homeland Security document shows that about 237 illegal marijuana farms in Maine generated $4.37 billion in revenue in 2023, far more than the state’s legal marijuana industry, which brought in $158 million.

Mexican cartels have long dominated the U.S. illicit pot market, but officials now warn that Chinese funding for such operations is skyrocketing.

A Chinese worker at an illegal cannabis farm in New Mexico that closed in 2020. Former employees of the plant filed a lawsuit against its leaders last year for assault

This home in Belgrade, Maine, was raided by police earlier this year after authorities said they discovered illegal marijuana cultivation inside. Two Chinese nationals were arrested

Maine police seized 970 marijuana plants from a Chinese farm in the city of Belgrade in January

It is not known whether the money comes from groups linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but experts have pointed out that triads are generally only allowed to operate if they agree to act as informal “enforcers” for the government.

Chinese immigrant workers have alleged they were lured to northern New Mexico under false pretenses and forced to work 14-hour days at an illegal marijuana factory backed by money from a China-based energy giant, according to a lawsuit filed last year.

Illegal Chinese migration has increased dramatically in the past two years. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has arrested nearly 25,000 People’s Republic of China (PRC) nationals since October, according to government data on border crossings at the southern and northern borders over the past four years.

A sprawling illegal marijuana factory in New Mexico was shut down after authorities found a network of 1,100 greenhouses spread over 400 acres

The operation was backed with financing from a China-based energy giant, according to a lawsuit by DailyMail.com

The recent figures represent an astonishing 7,000 percent increase over the same period in 2021.

Only 342 migrants from China were detained by CBP in fiscal 2021, and 1,987 were apprehended in the next fiscal cycle.

But the number of illegal migrants from China rose by 24,125 for the entire year in 2023.

Much of Garland’s hearing focused on immigration and the illegal drug trade. “There is no greater threat this country has faced in the drug space than fentanyl,” Garland said.

Garland ratcheted up pressure on Mexico, which has caused frustration among U.S. lawmakers for not doing enough to stop cartels from even reaching the U.S. border. He admitted that Mexico “wasn’t as helpful as I would like.”

The attorney general also declined to say whether President Biden has the legal authority to secure the border himself, confirming that Biden is still considering new executive actions after heavy pressure.

“I know, as has been reported, that the White House is considering a number of options regarding immigration,” Garland said. “I don’t want to get into our deliberations with the president and I don’t want to make a decision on legality until we have a specific proposal in front of us.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., attacked Biden for taking executive action to cancel student debt — even as those actions continue to be challenged in court — but declined to act on the border because he doesn’t believe he has the legal powers. authority.

“I don’t know how this is different, to stop illegal (immigration) and think they’re going to take us to court, and it could be overturned, but at least it sends the message that we’re taking the border seriously.”

Biden’s crackdown on the border is on the horizon and is expected to ease in coming weeks after months of delays. The White House team has been preparing for legal challenges and political responses, as well as a potential shortage of resources for enforcement actions.

Biden is expected to invoke Section 212(f), a part of the US code that allows the president to ban foreigners from entering the country if they are deemed harmful to US interests.

“Some suggest I should just try,” Biden admitted in a recent interview with Univision. “And if I’m shut down by the court, I’ll be shut down by the court.”