Guatemala’s Secretary of Strategic Intelligence Mario Duarte says migrants arriving at the United States-Mexico border are coming to the country for economic reasons and have been “weaponized” as a “picketing mob” for international open borders organizations.

In an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Saturday, Duarte said the truth about illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border is that most migrants are looking for jobs, not asylum, and that the lack of opportunity in Central America is largely due to globalization.

Duarte said:

The situation with the migrants, there is something people have to understand. A lot of … politicians have claimed throughout the years that migrants, or people from Central America or other places in Latin America, they try to migrate to the United States mainly because of security reasons because their lives are threatened … unfortunately, the truth is very different. Most of the people are trying to reach the United States because of economic reasons. Basically, what they have is a lack of opportunities in our countries. [Emphasis added] And it is true that our governments are the responsible ones for those [reasons] … throughout the years, we have had all of these globalized, or globalization projects, in our countries where they are trying to pretty much install the will of other countries, pretty much the [United Nations], in our ways of doing government. And I’m not talking about … or taking away the blame of governments that have been corrupt … I’m talking more about judges, magistrate, our judicial system, being co-opted in a certain way by leftist tendencies. Basically taking away the rights of legal businesses of establishing in Guatemala … because there is no judicial certainty here. [Emphasis added]

International open borders organizations, Duarte said, are driving caravans of migrants through Central America to the U.S. to protest the country’s enforcement of immigration.

“It’s true that the United States has helped us a lot but basically, the situation right now is where all of these people who leave are being also weaponized for political reasons,” Duarte said.

“That’s exactly what has happened with these caravans,” Duarte continued. “These caravans were very well-funded by different NGOs, several international NGOs, there was a very well-funded logistical chain that organized them in their home countries and took them up from Guatemala to Mexico, all the way to the United States, almost like a picketing mob because that’s, at the end, what you had at the southern border, this huge amount of people.”

“I’m not criminalizing migrants,” Duarte said. “They have been utilized as weapons by others with political reasons.”

Research from the Center for Immigration Studies has revealed that less than one percent of Guatemalans leave their homes to migrate to the U.S. through the southern border because of gang violence. The study concluded that more than 90 percent of Guatemalans came to the U.S. for economic reasons.

In total, Gallup has found that about five million Central Americans say they want to migrate to the U.S. if they have the chance. About 160 million foreign nationals said they would like to move to the U.S. if they get the opportunity.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.