Attorney General Merrick Garland admits he has NO 'theory' for why China is ... trends now

Attorney General Merrick Garland said he has no idea what's behind the flood of Chinese nationals trying to cross into the U.S. from Mexico in recent months, many of whom go on to grow illegal marijuana in the states. 

'Do you have a theory on why the Chinese are sending people illegally into our country to establish these grower operations?' Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Garland during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. 

'I don't have a theory,' the attorney general said. 

'Now normally, I develop a theory by learning the facts from the different investigative orders or entities that look into this. So at this point, I don't have a theory. There are a lot of obvious theories, including the profit motive.' 

'These transnational criminal organizations are operating ... all over the world to make money where they can, but I can't tell you what the specific motivation here is.'

Collins' state of Maine is the newest frontier in the black market marijuana business, but the phenomenon spans across the nation. 

In February 50 U.S. lawmakers wrote to Garland demanding answers about China's role in the illicit marijuana trade in the U.S. 

'We are deeply concerned with reports from across the country regarding Chinese nationals and organized crime cultivating marijuana on United States farmland,' the bipartisan group wrote.

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

A leaked Department of Homeland Security document from 2023 found that some 237 illicit marijuana farms in Maine generated $4.37 billion in revenue in 2023, far outpacing the state's legal marijuana industry which brought in $158 million. 

Mexican cartels have long dominated the market for illegal weed in the US, but officials are now warning that Chinese funding for such operations is skyrocketing.