These are not refugees in need of asylum. They are criminal thugs trying to rip off the United States.

Oil is energy and energy is a national security issue. This is not like stealing sneakers or jewelry. It's much more serious.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Illegal immigrants stealing oil from Permian basin near Texas border

Authorities in West Texas have begun to see illegal immigrants aiding criminal networks in the stealing of truckloads of valuable oil and materials from the nation's largest oilfields in the Permian Basin.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district spans 800 miles of the Texas border, organized federal and local law enforcement in the region Friday to come up with a plan of attack as the largest U.S. oilfield, the Permian Basin, continues to get hit by thieves. The matter is not only a border security matter but an energy security problem.

"The bottom line is the border crisis is expanding, and it is morphing into other things, and part of that is you have folks that are Cuban nationals that are kind of settling out in West Texas and in some cases are part of this increase in oil theft," Gonzales told the Washington Examiner Friday in a phone interview, who later added that Cuban involvement was "growing."

Winkler County Sheriff Darin Mitchell told reporters at a press conference at the epicenter for the oil theft on Friday that this type of crime had "increased dramatically" in recent months.