Cash-starved cartels, which are transnational criminal organizations, recently posted ads across social media platforms, including TikTok, purporting that America’s immigration laws have been suspended due to the government shutdown, according to Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks.

“What we’re seeing is a lot of TikTok accounts, social media accounts, where they are creating, utilizing AI, creating false narratives, in some cases, claiming that the border’s back open, there’s a temporary asylum — ‘Hey, the government’s shut down so the border’s open,” Banks said in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.

Images shared with the Washington Examiner by the Border Patrol show screenshots of the ads, including one of Trump waving as if in approval of the message posted on top of the picture.

One ad states that starting on Oct. 1, certain people can apply for a five-year work permit in the U.S. Another ad claims that legal entry to the U.S. is possible for 30,000 people outside the country.

Other posts on social media channels purport that Trump will not deport 600,000 Ecuadorian nationals in the U.S. and that, as of late September, a new law took effect that will be a “great blessing” to migrants.

“They want to counter the factual narrative, which is that the border is closed. If you cross the border, the probability of detection, apprehension, prosecution, and removal are the highest they’ve been in my lifetime. And so it’s impacting their ability to make money,” Banks said.

Former immigration judge Andrew Arthur said cartels’ desperation is evident, but so is the desperation of migrants who want to reach the U.S. and may fall for these posts.

“After four years of Biden’s open-border policies, though, it’s likely thousands of migrants will think this is real and take the bait,” wrote Arthur, resident fellow in law and policy at the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, in a text message.

“These ads simply show how desperate the cartels have become now that CBP has gained operational control of the border,” Arthur continued. “They aren’t able to charge illegal migrants the ‘piso’ tax to cross their ‘territory’, and Trump is cutting off their fentanyl shipments.”

However, cartels are not going to quit without a fight.

“They’re not just going to pack up and take their billions and billions that they made over the last four years and go away,” Banks continued. “They are trying to encourage these migrants to make this deadly journey to get to the border, and then when they show up and realize that the possibility of them getting across is greatly decreased, that’s when you’re starting to see large numbers pile up in places like Mexico along the border towns waiting for that opportunity to cross.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district spans more than 40% of the length of the southern border, said Trump’s message from the get-go remains regardless of how the cartels attempt to twist it.

“President Trump has made it clear with policy and action that our borders are closed,” Gonzales said in a statement to the Washington Examiner on Thursday. “In my district, which spans 823 miles of the border, our Border Patrol Agents are on the frontlines ready to enforce our laws at every turn and stop any and all illegal border crossings.”

Banks noted that the sharp decline in illegal immigration has had a positive effect on the number of migration-related deaths.

Illegal immigrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border peaked at an all-time high of nearly 250,000 arrests in December 2023. Under Trump, apprehensions have plunged to between 4,500 and 9,000 per month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the Trump administration’s record since January speaks for itself.

“Everyone knows the truth: the Southern Border is closed. For the fifth consecutive month this year, the Trump Administration released zero illegal aliens into the United States and nationwide encounters are 89 percent lower than the monthly average under the Biden Administration,” Jackson wrote in an email Thursday. “The stats speak for themselves.”

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The decrease in illegal immigration means fewer people are dying from dehydration while wandering remote areas, drowning in the Rio Grande, or getting killed while aboard freight trains.

“Cross-border deaths are down 77%,” Banks said. “We’re saving lives, and I think that’s very important because you hear a lot of people try to say that the previous administration wanted to create a more humane border, and what they created was total chaos on the border, and the least humane border that we had seen in my career, with record deaths year after year.”