A report for the US military rated the 1980 Mariel Boatlift as the third-most damaging attack on America, behind only 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. That mass migration from Cuba, engineered by its Marxist dictator Fidel Castro, set the template for what Peter Schweizer today calls “the weaponization of immigration.” He sat down with Jan Jekeliek of The Epoch Times on American Thought Leaders for a lengthy discussion of this theme.
Schweizer’s latest book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, has topped the New York Times bestseller list in each of its first three weeks. Immigration, he argues, is not the same as it was 50 or one hundred years ago. Foreign actors like Mexico and China have turned it into a clash of civilizations.
During the Mariel Boatlift, Castro seeded criminals, intelligence officers, and asylum patients among 125,000 legitimate Cuban refugees who floated on small boats to South Florida.
“It caused a huge problem with the growth in drug networks, crime in our streets, intelligence and subversion by the Cuban government,” Schweizer tells Jekeliek.
Unlike with Al Qaeda and Japan, Castro created drug networks, crime waves, and intelligence operations with no clear military target to strike back against. After then-President Jimmy Carter said the US would “welcome them with open arms, Castro promised aides, “We’re going to fill their arms with [excrement],” Schweizer learned.
The critical difference, Schweizer says, is that migrants are coming not to become Americans, but to bring their cultures here. “I quote in the book a senior ranking Mexican official with the Morena party saying that Mexicans who come to the United States and embrace American values are traitors,” Schweizer says. “They’re traitors to Mexico. And he says that President Sheinbaum agrees with him. So, it’s very different dynamic. These foreign actors are manipulating immigration in a way that is tragic for our country.”
Jekielek asks, “What do you think about this Cloward-Piven strategy type approach, where you want to kind of like blow out the economy so they can transform it into a more social socialist economy? That’s nuts. But there’s people working on that, apparently.”
“When you look at the motivations of these foreign actors, they are open about it. When it comes to Mexico, this is the notion: Mexico views mass migration as a way of extending their sovereignty into the United States to reclaim portions of the American Southwest that they lost in the 19th century,” Schweizer replies. “They’re actually openly saying it.”
“Whether they actually mean that California will someday become a Mexican state is really not the point,” he goes on. “The point is they believe that they are reaching critical mass in those states, and they’re going to be able to exert a level of sovereignty in those states, and they’re already kind of doing it.”
The subject shifts to China and Jekielek mentions one aspect of migration that Schweizer’s book does not focus on – Chinese nationals coming across the southern border.
“During what’s been dubbed the surge in the previous administration… there was a large number of Chinese nationals,” Jekielek says. “There were military-aged males that were described. You don’t focus on that aspect of weaponized migration from the Chinese Communist Party side. Was this a kind of a fifth column pushed into America through that?”
“I think so,” Schweizer agrees. And you’ve done some reporting on this as have other people. I think it’s true when you realize that a lot of the criminal networks that operate in the United States include Chinese organized crime. These individuals would come and connect up with them.” He goes on to describe illegal marijuana growing operations in the state of Maine that were found to be run by Chinese triad-connected illegal aliens who came across the southern border.
“So, are there individuals there that are escaping communism and want to be part of the American system? Yeah, there are,” Schweizer says. The problem is, as in the example of the Mariel boatlift, you don’t really know who is who. And a lot of these individuals are coming into the United States are connected with the CCP, they’re connected with Chinese organized crime. Peter Schweizer And this is in part an effort of infiltration. The fact you have some people fleeing communism is perfect cover for criminals — exactly the same methodology that Fidel Castro used in the Mariel boatlift.”
The interview also covers Schweizer’s findings on Chinese “birth tourism,” and use of surrogacy on an industrial scale. Chinese companies such as “You In USA” charge $78,000 to fly pregnant women to America, coach them to lie on visa applications, house them in California condos, arrange medical care, and return them and their US-born children to China after birth. The industry boasts clients including high-ranking military officers, intelligence officials, CCP members, and Ministry of Propaganda employees. One billionaire has over 100 children born this way. Starting in 2030, one million U.S. citizens raised in China may begin “returning” to the US to vote in American elections.
Schweizer also discusses Chinese pilot trainees attending American flight schools. These students come to the US to study basic flying, then return to China where the best of them are selected for military flight training. This is a shocking and unexpected problem for America, which was attacked on 9/11 by terrorists who also trained at US flight schools.
