Dave Janda: Hi, I’m Dr. Dave Janda. Welcome back to our Insider Insight Show. I’m honored to have with me today someone who is a true American hero. And one would think that the United States government would embrace my guest, Victor Avila, an American hero. He sacrificed his life. His partner died. He was wounded in action. Yet, the American government, rather than embrace him, support him, comfort him, actually stiff armed him is probably the best way to put it. A little… a little background on Victor. He is a retired Supervisory Special Agent with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations under the US Department of Homeland Security. ICE enforces federal laws governing border control customs, trade and immigration promote Homeland Security and public safety. Victor has been recognized by ICE and HSI for his exemplary service and professional accomplishments smiles while serving as a Special Agent at the El Paso field office.
Victor served as an accredited diplomat and liaison conducting international complex criminal investigations in a wide range of viola… violations such as narcotics trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking, smuggling, financial violations, commercial fraud, and counterterrorism. While on official assignment in Mexico, Special Agent Avila suffered multiple gunshot wounds and survived a violent ambush by the Mexican Los Zetas drug cartel, where a Special Agent Zapata tragically lost his life. Victor began his very successful law enforcement career as a United States probation officer for the United States Courts, and as a district parole officer for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Victor holds a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice from the University of Texas at El Paso, while focusing on the identity among Hispanic Americans along the border.
Today, Victor serves to honor the memory and dedicated service of Special Agent Zapata. Victor is an advocate for border security, immigration reform, human trafficking awareness, and protection of our sovereignty. He has also a fantastic book. I encourage you to get the book ‘Agent Under Fire’. It’s my honor to welcome Victor Avila. Victor, welcome to the Insider Insight show.
Victor Avila: Thank you, Dave. Thank you so much for having me.
Dave Janda: Well, Victor, educate our listeners on your book, ‘Agent Under Fire’. The main takeaway points you want the reader to walk away with after they finish your great book.
Victor Avila: The one reason I wrote the book is to honor the memory of Special Agent Jaime Zapata, and in a fashion to inform the public, first of all, that this happened. It’ll be 10 years next month, February 15th. The attack occurred in 2011. And unfortunately, there’s many people in our country that don’t… don’t even know that a US agent was killed in a line of duty in Mexico. And so, that was one of the big reasons why I wrote the book is to tell the story, inform the public, and with that story, and the ambush, because I go into very, very explicit details of the assignment and the shooting, not… not gratuitously, but because I think it’s important for people to realize the dangers that we face in Mexico on our border and how it affects the United States directly in our communities.
And so, part… part 2 of my book, after going through that, and I also talk a little bit about myself, growing up on the border, letting the reader know who I am, where I come from. And I also throw some law enforcement stories in there about my human trafficking investigations and drug trafficking investigations. And then the second part, which I think is… is as important is what we’re facing right now is border security, and it hasn’t gone away. The media hasn’t focused on that in the last couple of years because of the election and everything else has been going on. But guess what? It hasn’t stopped. It hasn’t stopped at the border. And so, I offer solutions, real solutions on how to deal with the wall, sanctuary cities, asylum, DACA, criminal, illegal aliens, everything that really touches us in our communities, the drug trafficking in the cartels, in our communities. And I think that’s a… it’s coming to light. And unfortunately, it’s… it’s a big focus. And you’ll see the focus is starting to come around again, because of the actions that President Biden just signed into executive orders just yesterday. And so, we… it is… is unfortunate that we might not be heading in the right direction when it comes to border security.
Dave Janda: You know, Victor, let’s… let’s… let’s… let’s break this down because this is really important because there has been so much misinformation and disinformation put up by what I call the bought off lamestream fake media on border security and… and the ramifications of the drug cartels and the pervasiveness of the drug cartels, not just in Mexico, but actually in our own country, and not just at the border, their tentacles are everywhere.
So, let’s go back to 2011. When I go through what happened to you and your… and your partner, and maybe I read… maybe I got this wrong, but I got… my reading was is that you had, and your partner and your group had intel that you were potentially walking into a hot zone that was going to put your lives at risk and many other people’s lives at risk. Yet you were still sent in there, in spite of the concerns that were gener… that you had generated? Am I… was I am… I wrong on that reading?
Victor Avila: No, you’re absolutely correct. It is a challenging assignment. The assignment came on February 14th, 2011 on Valentine’s Day. I challenged the assignment, first of all, because I had just actually returned into Mexico. I was conducting another investigation and was unaware of what’s going on. And in the law enforcement world, we… we get briefed a lot on… on operations. And you are in the middle of briefings and communications if you’re going to conduct some kind of operation, or any kind of activity, especially in Mexico. In this case, I wasn’t afforded that, especially, you know, Jaime Zapata had only been in the country a little over a week as a temporary assignment agent out of Laredo office.
And so, I get this assignment saying, “You’re going to drive to Monterey to meet with our ICE agents to go pick up and exchange some equipment from them and bring it back to Mexico City.” And the first thing I say is, “Wait a minute, highway 57, which is the main corridor from Mexico City up north towards Texas, is a hot zone,” like you’ve described. And we did have the Intel that the Zetas cartel control that whole area. And I immediately made phone calls to the assistant ICE attaché out of the Monterey consulate and… and say, “Hey, listen, what’s going on?” He’s like, “Yeah, Victor, they’re having firefights on this highway between the Zetas cartel, the military, and the police.” And I’m like, “Why aren’t we sending this equipment via a diplomatic pouch, send it by air? There’s many other means to send this equipment (unclear) [07:48] if in fact, it’s needed that… that quickly and the urgency is there.” Because my orders were to… to bring that equipment by close of business day on the 15th, which is almost impossible, because it’s a turnaround time total of about 12 to… 12 to 14 hours.
So, it was a challenging assignment. It was a not just to my immediate supervisor, but the deputy attaché, who I will quote until I can his exact words, which I do in the book. He said he wasn’t aware of any security issues in Mexico. And I’m like, “What do you… what are you talking about? The whole country of Mexico is a security issue. And we face dangers.” I understand that. I understand my assignment in Mexico, and I understand the dangers of the country. However, we take necessary precautions.
Dave Janda: Sure.
Victor Avila: And in this case (unclear) [08:42] have escorts, we would have even Mexican Federal police accompany us, the military someone, other US agents in a caravan to go do this. But in this case, it was just myself, Special Agent Jaime Zapata. And we were headed off on early February 15th, 2011.
Dave Janda: So, you get attacked, Special Agent Zapata dies, you’re wounded, multiple wounds.
Victor Avila: Yes.
Dave Janda: Take us from that point forward, from that point.
Victor Avila: On the way back, I’ll tell you really quickly, on the way back, driving back, we were ambushed by about 8 members of the Zetas cartel with AK-47s. And tragically, Agent Zapata was fatally wounded. I was shot 3 times and I sit here in front of you by the grace of God. He decided not to take me that day. And… and moving forward, as you can imagine, it turned my life and my family’s life upside down. And so, then the second part of the aftermath of the shooting, which I call in the book is sometimes as puzzling and disturbing and… and as traumatic as the shooting itself, or sometimes I think even worse. Because my agency decided that they… there was no backing. As we say, in the law enforcement world, there was no backup there. They really did not know what to do with me.
And I felt… I found myself in a very awkward situation, partly because people ask me why. I don’t know why, other than I could speculate because 2 of the weapons that were recovered of our shooting are linked to Operation Fast and Furious. People are aware of that, it’s an operation of… through the ATF and multiple federal agencies that allowed a firearms rifles, AK-47s to be walked, which when I say walk is to allow for them to go from the United States into Mexico under their own watch. And so, there’s thousands of weapons sent south under the direction of the US government. And in our case, it was a link to that operation out of Texas. And 2 of those weapons that were recovered were weapons attached to that… that ATF supervised, and had the opportunity to arrest the individuals before.
But so maybe that’s the reason. Maybe the reason is that we tried to legally seek… you know, we sued the government. The government has many, many, many immunities and protections and the lawsuit resulted in no recovery. There is… nothing happened. And it was kind of a catch 22 situation because the US District Judge said, “I can’t…” he sympathized with us, he said, “I cannot believe you, I need the documents that you’re… you’re saying. Get me the documents.” And we tell the judge, “Well, the government won’t give me the documents. President Obama had ordered and… and implemented an executive order, executive privilege order, blocking the recovery of all documentation, anything to do with our shooting, and Fast and Furious.” So, we tell the judge, “They won’t give it to us, we can get it to you,” and so, that was the end of the lawsuit.
And so, fast forward to 2015, I had no other choice but to separate from the… from the service. And I had to do it in a medical way. I received the medical retirement. And so, now I my focus was to tell the story, and really to educate people what’s going on in our border. You know, human trafficking, the cartels, and the story of Special Agent Jamie Zapata’s heroism and his sacrifice that day.
Dave Janda: Victor, the people that sent you on essentially a suicide, homicide mission to… I mean, did they… after the… after the event, the very people that you said, “Stop, this is not a smart idea. This is…” did they ever… did they ever come to you and say, “Victor, what was I thinking? I mean, what… what did… I mean, why didn’t I listen to you guys?” Did… did you get any of that?
Victor Avila: Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, they were promoted by the agency, and now are higher up as you and I speak. Some have retired. Some are still there and high levels of positions within the department of Homeland Security under Homeland Security investigations.
Dave Janda: They got promoted for not listening to the people on the ground saying, “This is not right. This is a bad mission.” And one of those individuals, Special Agent Zapata dies, and you get significantly wounded in the process, and they get promoted?
Victor Avila: That’s correct. And not only… not only information from the ground myself and the agents from Monterrey, but from the US ambassador, from the US Embassy in Mexico City themselves, there was an alert issued prohibiting any us personnel to drive on highway 57 where the ambush occurred, whether you would be traveling for personal reasons or business reasons. And so, they even, you know, just disregarded that alert altogether. So, there was a lot of issues there with that assignment that unfortunately resulted in the death of Agent Zapata.
Dave Janda: So, it’s bad enough that they get… they promote these people that cause this unnecessary loss of life and your injuries, which were significant, that’s bad enough. But… but in addition your… your administrators, rather than embrace you pushed you away, told people to stay away from you, not to talk to you, not… not to deal with you, correct?
Victor Avila: That’s… that’s very true. And… and I’ll make something very clear. I never requested any special treatment from… from my, my government, my agency. All I wanted was just basically to be taken care of. I wanted my family, you know, we were in another country, my family was extracted in a very traumatic way by multiple Federal Police. And because they were, at one point in danger. And so, I just wanted them to take care of me and in a, you know, put me in a position. They could have done a lot of things for me, in other words, and they just decided not to. They… I could go into a lot of details about it. They took my guns away. They took… they erased my law enforcement callsign. They erased my email. I almost didn’t exist, but I was still on the payroll. And it didn’t make any sense to me, because at one point, I started questioning, “Well, what did I do wrong here?”
Dave Janda: Right.
Victor Avila: And all…and all I did was… was pay with a lot of work, sweat, and blood and tears.
Dave Janda: This is so upside down, Victor. I mean, this is like something from a really horrible movie.
Victor Avila: In the… in the words of my friend, Daniel Horowitz, he describes… describes this event as a Mexican Ben Ghazi and…
Dave Janda: Yes, yes.
Victor Avila: And… and then when he said that, I said, “Absolutely, absolutely right.” This is a… is a botched assignment, the aftermath. They could have done something here differently to… I hope they learn from it. And there’s some… obviously, there’s policy that has been implemented now, after the shooting. However, we could go into details about what’s going on in Mexico and how our… our personnel are still working hard in Mexico, as we speak, to try to enhance the mission of our US government to keep us safe and our homeland safe.
Dave Janda: You know, Victor, one of the misconceptions about the drug cartels, is that, well, okay, they’re… they’re… they’re ubiquitous in Mexico, but that’s it. They… they haven’t become ubiquitous throughout the United States. And if they are more ingrained in the United States, it’s well, mainly just along the border on the south. Victor, that’s not the case at all.
Victor Avila: Absolutely not. And what I do in the book is, is I really express the… the need for Americans to know what is going on. And Mexico, and I’ll tell you this, when I started my career in 2008 in Mexico, it was in Ciudad Juarez, the other side of El Paso, Texas, which was the most dangerous city in the world at that time with 350 homicides a month. It is I thought there’s no way Mexico could get any worse. And I was actually very, very wrong. It is worse. The cartels have become fluid organizations, which I described in the book as foreign terrorist organizations, and should be designated as such by our US government because the presence they have, not just in the United States, but 40 countries around the world. And they are not just along the border. Mexico might be their headquarters, yes.
But these… these guys are ruthless. They deal in… obviously, in violence. And they’re bringing the record numbers of methamphetamine, fentanyl, heroin, and this poison into our communities in around the country. And a lot of the violence that you see that… that spikes around in Chicago, in Maryland, in St. Louis, in California, New York, is attributed and linked back to the cartels, because it’s their product that is being pushed. And so, the cartels are present in these communities. They have established their presence in these areas to make sure that their product is being distributed accurately.
And of course, you know, I get the pushback, “They’re not terrorists. They’re not like ISIS.” I think they’re exactly like ISIS. They’re actually just like ISIS, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda. The only difference is that the… their ideology is different. And I really necessarily don’t care that their ideology is money and power. But the ruthlessness, the violence that they commit on a daily basis, it is worse actually than ISIS. And if you see what’s happening in Mexico on a daily basis, firefights in the middle of the day. These… these cartels are highly sophisticated. They are not drug gangs. These are high… and they’re not… no longer drug trafficking organizations either. These are highly-sophisticated organizations, highly-weaponized, highly-trained, and dealing with, not just narcotics and drugs, human trafficking, human smuggling, the avocado trade, the oil and gas industry in Mexico. These guys have tapped into a plethora of illegal activity. And guess what? Their main concern is bringing it across our border and affecting our US citizens.
Dave Janda: You know, Victor, for 32 years, I practiced as an orthopedic surgeon, as a physician. And many times, when you’re on call, you meet people that you normally would not meet in life. And one of the biggest misconceptions I have found is that, when you deal with… and I had the… well, I guess you’ll… let’s call it the opportunity to take care of a number of individuals that were in drug cartels. Because I was on call, they got hurt, and I’m there to take care of them. Now, here’s the one of the biggest misconceptions I found, and maybe you can tell me if I’m wrong, but many people believe, “Well, these… the drug cartel individuals are… they’re ruthless, but that’s where it starts and stops.” These people are ruthless, but they’re… but I’ll tell you, some of the smartest people I ever came in contact with in my life were people who were with the drug cartels. They’re not dumb. They’re really smart.
Victor Avila: And… and part of that… that highly sophistication is exactly that. These individuals are highly trained. And you have a hierarchy, just like you would in any private corporation, all the way up to the CEO. And so, yes, you do have intelligent people running these organizations. They wouldn’t be successful in the billions of dollars if they weren’t. And… and so, they are very well managed. And I’ll give you a quick example. During our trial in 2017, because the shooters were caught and extradited to the US, we had a trial in Washington D.C. in 2017. And the information that came about of the Zetas cartel, and I’ll give you 2 quick examples, they had to check out the vehicles that they used under… for our attack and the weapons, and they even had fleet cards, gas cards for the vehicles. This is just like any private corporation and… and… and highly controlled, under a payroll, everybody has a role. The difference is that their role is a murderers, kidnappers, extortionists and… and… and… and the list goes on and on.
But… but yeah, this is the… the… the message that I’m trying to bring is that the United States needs to step up at this point now, especially under this new administration, and really focus on the imminent threat that I think that the cartels are to our country. And we need to do something about it. And that’s part of border security, which really is now national security.
Dave Janda: Oh, and let’s talk about that. Because, as you mentioned, there is these… this plethora of executive orders that were signed, many of them focusing on the border. So, take us through the Trump administration, and now that Biden is there, where… where we are, where we’re going with illegal immigration, your take, border security, human trafficking, and the like.
Victor Avila: Great question, we’re going to see major, major changes. So, under the Trump administration, as everyone knows, there was a new policies and executive orders implemented to strengthen our border security. A lot of people call it racist and moral, and all these things. I, as a person, as a Hispanic individual, and a person that was born and raised on the border and worked most of my life there and in Mexico, I can tell you, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the protection of our sovereignty in the United States, and… and the illegal immigration that we’re seeing, and the activity of these cartels. The Trump administration recognized that and said, “Let’s start doing something about it.”
And so, first, let’s talk about the wall. So, the wall is a tool, right, that… that people like me, and that worked on the border requests… requested. If you’re a carpenter, you request the hammer, because the hammer will help you do your job a lot better, rather than using a rock. And so, this is the same thing is the wall is an additional tool. It’s not a solve all, but it’s an additional tool. And I, unfortunately, because of executive order yesterday, that construction has seized. And only a little over 450 miles of border wall were constructed. Border Patrol agents on the ground welcomed that wall. I’ve seen in my career many instances of SUVs full of drugs cross… just cross the river, where there’s low level of water, individuals, 16 of them carrying drugs and dumping them on either side. The floods of illegals being come over or brought over by coyotes. And so, the wall slows that down drastically. So, that’s one thing I talked about as well in my book.
But so, the… the other one… the big ones that are coming up right now is the asylum claims and the caravans that everybody has seen in our… as you and I speak, on their way right now to our southern border, because they just got the message that it’s wide open, and they’re coming. And now, the… the remain in Mexico policy, for example, that Trump… President Trump implemented will be done away with. That means that catch and release will now be reinstated, meaning that the border patrol agents will catch these individuals at a border and release them into the United States, not catch and release into Mexico (unclear) [25:48] catch them and release them into our country as they seek asylum. And we’ll never… we’ll never hear from them again.
And… and the asylum… the asylum laws, by the way, they’ve have not changed. The asylum laws when I worked there and even under the Trump administration, even under the Obama administration, the criteria to qualify for asylum is still the same. It’s the interpretation of that, those asylum laws that has really drastically changed. And really, when it comes down to it, I’m a humanitarian. I know these people that come from Honduras and Central America and Mexico and a lot of other parts around the world, I know they want to better… their families and their economic situation. But it gets to a point where, when are we going to say, “This is something that’s a responsibility of your government, not of ours.”
(unclear) [26:43] we’re being insensitive, or racist or immoral or it’s not that I don’t want people. I’ll tell you right now, I’m the biggest proponent of legal immigration. My… I’m the product of legal immigration. I’m the pro… you’re looking at the American Dream here. My parents came here legally. They worked hard. They… they’re living the American dream. They assimilated, which I talked about it in my book, they assimilated to this country. My parents are US citizens. My… my dad became a US citizen in 1980. And… and that’s the right way to do it. And I’m all for that. It’s the illegal way and the illegal immigration, and especially the criminal, illegal immigration that is really taking over our country in many, many ways that we’ve talked about, because a lot of these cartel members are illegal themselves.
And so, the Trump administration, with everything that they implemented, it was starting to help. And the statistics speak for themselves, the… the reduction of the flow of illegal aliens coming through, and a lot of other issues. And so, now, as of yesterday, they’re basically being undone by the stroke of a pen by President Biden. And we’re going to have chaos. You mark my words, we are going to have… remember, a couple of years ago, we had thousands of people and in the end, the children, the family. Well, guess what? They’re coming and they’re coming in by the hundreds of thousands. And Mex… right now, Guatemala is trying to do something to keep the Hondurans from coming. Mexico, initially helped out with their national guard to keep them. But as you and I know, eventually they will make our US Mexico border. And are we just going to allow these people in?
We in our… in our country have a lot to focus on, as you know. We have a lot of our own issues here and our own security and our own crime rates around our country and sanctuary cities, that all of a sudden, we’re going to allow all these people, because Joe Biden just told them, “I’m going to give you a path… a pathway to citizenship.” And so, he… I think the date he put is, if you’re in the country, by January 1st of 2021, you will qualify. You know the amount of fraud and the amount of illegal activity that’s going to bring into this country? And it is… it is unfortunate what we’re and the preparedness that we’re seeing. And I have a lot of contacts and colleagues down there that are being prepared. But I talk about something in my book that I think is important, is we saw this in in our US Capitol with the 25,000 National Guard for this inauguration. But let me tell you where I’m going with this. I’d rather see those 25,000 National Guard down in our southern border.
Dave Janda: And so would I.
Victor Avila: Because that’s… because that’s where the threat is.
Dave Janda: Right.
Victor Avila: The threat wasn’t yesterday at the inauguration, the threat and has been down at the border. Let’s get a surge. And I mentioned this. I mentioned my book a lot, because my book is not just about telling the story over and over what you hear in the news. I’m giving out real solutions here. And one of the solutions I put out as a… is to create a surge. Remember the surge that that George W. Bush did for Iraq, it was very successful?
Dave Janda: Mm-hmm.
Victor Avila: Kind of compare it to that and say, “Let’s have our 20,000 border patrol agents that are assigned all over the country, let’s send them all down to the southwest border. Let’s send out ICE agents. Let’s send out National Guard. Let’s seal that border.” Because you and I can talk about this all day, about the drugs, and the fentanyl than heroin, but unless we seal that border, it’s going to continue to happen.
Dave Janda: Well, you know, Victor, you mentioned the inauguration, right? So, they protected themselves with 25,000, or 30,000, or something, who even… who knows? Who really knows? The number could be a lot higher than that. But the other thing they did Victor, is they put a 12-foot-high wall, all around the city in the Capitol building. And these are the same people that say walls are bad. In fact, as you said, in the first executive order signings that went through, it was, “Stop… stop building the wall. Stop,” maybe even taken down some of the wall. What?
Victor Avila: That is incredible. Those are the 2 first things that I noticed immediately that happened. Walls went up and security was increased with a National Guard. And… and guess what? That’s exactly what I would request of our southern border, walls go up and increase the security down there. But I didn’t hear Joe Biden talk about… he’s…he’s very talking about everything that he’s going to undo. Well, if he’s going to undo it, and if he’s going to undo the asylum, and the remain in Mexico policy, and the DACA, and all this, then if he would explain how he had (unclear) [31:50] I wouldn’t have an issue so much with it and say, “Okay, I’m going to have so many more agents assigned. I’m going to have so many more prosecutors, so many more immigration judges…” right?
Dave Janda: Right.
Victor Avila: “… to handle what’s going to happen.” I didn’t… I didn’t hear the second part of that. And so, it’s going to… we are in a crossroads in our country when it comes to choosing the protection of our sovereignty and our freedom.
Dave Janda: Well, one of my other bags, if you will, is prevention and public health. Well, what… what you do and your colleagues do on the border is a huge public health issue. I mean, Biden’s making this big deal about COVID. Well, wait a minute, you’re… if you open the border, in addition to COVID and tuberculosis and many other diseases, this is a huge issue.
Victor Avila: Well, let’s see what’s happening in El Paso. I’m originally from there. El Paso has been a hotspot for several months. And they… the local officials there refused, and even the US Congresswoman there, Veronica Escobar, refuses… by the way, who took over Beto O’Rourke’s position, refuses to acknowledge that the reason the COVID cases are so high in El Paso, Texas is because of the people coming in from Mexico. And let me tell you who those people are. A lot of them are US citizens, and res… permanent resident aliens from the United States that they chose to live in Mexico. You know, I’ve known this all my life living there that it’s, you know, you’re a resident, permanent resident alien, getting the benefits of being a US resident alien, but you live in Mexico.
Dave Janda: Mm-hmm.
Victor Avila: Well, now, guess what? Now you’re suffering the consequences of living in Mexico because of the COVID crisis that they have over there. Now, all of a sudden, they come to the US, in this case, El Paso, take over our hospitals. And some of those are so, so overwhelmed with COVID cases and ICU units, that some of those patients are being flown into the interior of Texas. And a lot of people don’t know this, because you will not hear about it in the mainstream media. And so, yes, the implementation by the President… the President Trump’s administration of right now using title… I think it’s title 42, is the health precautionary is… is keeping these individuals on the other side of the border.
Dave Janda: Mm-hmm.
Victor Avila: I don’t know what part of that Joe Biden is going to undo, because if they’re so concerned with COVID, and apparently, they are, that wouldn’t be something that would make only sense to keep these individuals on the other side of the border, and seek asylum from their home country.
Dave Janda: Victor, I want to turn to the human trafficking side of this, because many people think about the drug… or the Mexican cartels, that, “Oh, their whole business is the drug industry.” And as you said, they’re a multi-dimensional conglomerate, and they’re in the oil and gas business. They’re in the… they’re in the drug industry. They’re in the money-laundering industry. They’re in the human-trafficking industry. And… and folks, where I am here in the People’s Republic, they say, “You know, Dave, you make it too big of a deal about this human trafficking thing. You… you make it sound like, you know, that, yeah, it’s occurring, but not to the level you speak about.” Well, Victor, you’re right there. You’re on the frontline. Human trafficking, and tell me, look, Victor, you’re the expert, you can tell… be free to tell me I’m wrong. But human trafficking is a huge deal. And in fact, I contend that these cartels make as much money, if not maybe more money from the human trafficking side of this equation, than from other sides of their conglomerate.
Victor Avila: Absolutely 100% correct. By the way, I’m a subject matter expert in human trafficking. And that was my specialty as a Homeland Security Investigation Special Agent. And I’ve rescued countless women and children from captivity, not only in Mexico, but in throughout the United States. And so, I’m here sitting in front of you telling you that this is a huge, huge issue. And you know, I know President Trump did a great job of bringing human trafficking to light, but it’s been going on for many, many years. This is not nothing new. And it’s… it’s 2 types of trafficking that mainly concerned with. You know, you have the sex slave trade, the… the sexual exploitation side of it, but also, we have the forced labor part of it. And we have the international victims that are brought from other parts around the world. And we also have human trafficking of a US citizens within our own borders. And so, we can ignore that part as well.
The Dallas Fort Worth area in Texas right now is the number 1 hub for human trafficking. And this is… this is how I explained to people. If a drug trafficker that only traffics in drugs has… has a kilo of cocaine to sell, and he sells that kilo cocaine and makes an enormous amount of profit and is… and is… and is done, he has to go get another kilo of cocaine to continue his trafficking activities.
Dave Janda: True.
Victor Avila: In the human trafficking world, that victim keeps on giving and giving and giving until she either dies, is completely ill and can’t function anymore. Because they’re treated as a piece of furniture. They’re treated as a product. And I’ve seen it firsthand what they do to these victims. They’re not in chains. They’re not in handcuffs. There is a lot of… you know, the 3 elements of human trafficking is force, fraud, and coercion. The force is there, but most of the time, it is the coercion that they use in threatening the children of these victims by cutting off their ears or their fingers, by physically breaking the victims down mentally, and physically hurting them with a cigarette burns. I mean, I could go on. And there’s… I do describe one in my book.
To give the shock, the impact of it to people who realize that, in fact, if they have… if they think, “No, this is really not true. This is not happening.” It happens next door. We refer to human trafficking as a… as a crime that happens in plain sight. You just can’t see it. I’ve rescued victims that worked in indentured servitude situations for years as a… as a… as a house maid, if you will, being a slave of the family for years, and no one knew about it. She would service the parties, she would service everything, and lived in a small room in a basement. And I could go on and on and on with these cases. And so, human trafficking, you mentioned the profits that these organizations are seeing is right now right up there with a drug trafficking trade.
Dave Janda: Victor, rather than the government push you away, let’s say you get a phone call, “Victor Avila, you’ve been treated very poorly by our government. You sacrificed your life. Your partner lost his life, at the hands of potential policies of our own government,” and then they… and they call you up and they say, “Victor, we want to make this right. You have a tremendous amount of experience. You have a tremendous amount of courage. We want to make you let’s say the director of ICE. And Victor, we want you particularly to focus on the southern border.” What would be the first couple things you do, Victor?
Victor Avila: Oh, my goodness, I would love to have that opportunity to serve… serve again and serve my country. And I’ll just say this before I answer your question. I was a very loyal, very loyal federal employee and proud to serve in the Federal service. And so, I would love nothing more to do that again. And so, I would immediately implement these changes with, first of all, sit down with the department of Homeland Secretary. By the way, the new one that’s coming on board is not some… someone that we are, at least in my personal view, that would have security, border security as a primary focus. But nevertheless, everything that we just talked about right now, I would immediately change and implement around our southern border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, all the way. I’m talking about a shift of personnel. I’m talking about a shift of… in resources, I’m talking about special assignments.
There’s a lot of good people that work in these… in our agencies that have not given the opportunity to really lead and are… we have great leaders. And let me tell you, I’m a great supporter of ICE. And I’m a great supporter of Department of Homeland Security. It’s just that the leadership has lacked there in many, many years. And so, we get… we continue to see political appointees, individuals that have never actually been down there, done that. And so, I would love to see those type of people in supervisory roles, and not just management roles, but higher physicians to really assess. And they know what’s going down there, because they’ve been there and done that.
And let’s not forget the customs part of it as well. We deal… we talked a lot about immigration, but there’s intellectual property rights violations, counter proliferation investigations. Right now, with the vaccines, HSI protects our homeland by all the pharmaceuticals that comes into our country. The toothpaste that you use every day, we… we want to make sure that you’re not using a counterfeit toothpaste in your mouth. And so, we’re protecting our homeland in many, many other fashions in ways that people might not be aware of. And so, I would bring all that focus, and anything that has a nexus and touches our border will be the primary focus. And it should be, even though that’s the… the mission of ICE and the mission of Homeland Security, I think the focus to bring that mission into action would be the first thing I would do.
Dave Janda: Victor, educate our listeners on how they can get your book, and how they can continue to follow your courageous efforts in making every, every person in our country safer.
Victor Avila: Absolutely. You could go to agentunderfirebook.com, agentunderfirebook.com. You can find me there. You can send me an email through there. I’m also available for public speaking events. I talk a lot to law enforcement groups, military groups. But I’d also like to start speaking to faith-based groups and share my survival story, because I firmly believe that God had something to do with me and… and has a… there’s a reason why I’m here and maybe a purpose, and maybe this is it, to educate the public. And so, you can find me through there. You can follow me on Twitter if you’re still on there @ Vic Survivor 11, @ Vic survivor 11, and hope to make some contact with some of your viewers and listeners.
Dave Janda: Victor, I’d like to thank you for everything you have done, are doing, and will do. My dad’s favorite saying was, “Dream big and dare to fail.” I used to say, “Wait a minute, you mean dream big and dare to win?” and he’d be like, “No. If you just dare to win, you’re not going to leave it all on the field. But if you dare to fail, you leave it all on the field.” And Victor, that’s exactly what you’ve done your entire life. You’ve dream big, you’ve dared to fail. And in the process, you have helped every American. They… they might not know it, but the truth is you’ve helped every American with their safety and their security, and to help ensure their future. And I thank you for your courage and your sacrifice.
Victor Avila: Thank you so much for your kind words, David. And… and I really appreciate the time today.
Dave Janda: I thank you, Victor. And I thank you folks for joining us. Until next time, Dave Janda signing off. Dream big and dare to fail, just like Victor. Let him be your role model. Until next time, Dave Janda signing off. Take care.