I've never heard the government say any of it, except their calculation of the dollar volume of drugs coming across the SW border. They've never said the cartels were buying up officials or politicians. They've never said the cartels were behind illegal immigration, instead, they treat it as two difference unrelated issues, when I believe they are not only connected, their drug business can't survive here without illegal aliens to run the operations. This is just me saying it. Agree or not, it's just my conclusion from research years ago and nothing since has caused me to change my mind.