The Border: Drug Smuggling and U.S. Efforts at Detection

From WolfWikis

Introduction: The Third Country

In 1996, the Attorney General’s Special Representative for South West Border Issues, Alan D. Bersin wrote, “El Tercer Pais, the ‘Third Country,’ is Mexico’s description of its 2,000 mile border with the Southwestern United States.” Bersin understood that the border area was the focal point of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. He wrote, “The border region is a crucible in which the elements of migration, drug trafficking, and free trade react intensely with each other.”^[1] These three issues, migration, drug smuggling, and NAFTA interact with each other in complex way in the border areas. These interactions result in many startling problems that America and Mexico have been attempting to resolve for decades. The border is where it all comes together, the United States, Mexico, their citizenries, the varying mechanisms of their governments, and their criminal elements. The conflicts, confusion and chaos that are a result of this interaction allowed the border to be as Bersin described, “a ‘safe harbor’ for criminal activities and criminals who otherwise would be condemned by both the Mexico and the United States.”^[2] This central criminal activity of the nefarious elements of the border region is the smuggling of drugs into the United States. This smuggling has led to tragic consequences for the people that live and work on the border between Mexico and America.

Drug Trafficking: American Demand- Mexican Supply and the Great Debate

During the 1980’s the main drug smuggling routes into the U.S. shifted from South Florida to the Southwest border.^[3] What had been a marginal amount in the mid 1980’s had increased by 70% by 1995.^[4] This illustrates a basic rule of drug trafficking: if the United States closes one avenue of drug importation, another will quickly take its place. The Colombian drug cartels aligned with Mexican smuggling organizations. This alignment has rendered Mexico, “The narcotics trans-shipment route of choice.”^[5] Alan Bersin explained, “The San Ysidro Port of Entry…is the busiest land border crossing in the world-inspecting more than forty million persons and fifteen million vehicles annually.”^[6] It is clear when dealing with such a large volume of people crossing the border it is impossible to apprehend all of the individuals involved in illegal drug smuggling. This problem is compounded when one considers the massive number of people whom enter the country illegally by sneaking across the border. The vast majority of these people are simply seeking employment in the United States; some however are involved in narcotics trafficking. Mexico supplies the United States 30% of its heroin and 80% of its marijuana. Peter Andreas reports that Mexico earns more than $7 billion dollars a year from the illegal drug trade.^[7] The United States and Mexico have long disagreed as to how they should handle the drug trafficking problem. Bersin wrote, “The U.S. Government endeavors to persuade, cajole or compel Mexican authorities to act more decisively to interdict the supply of narcotics and to prohibit its transport overland across the border.” Americans complain about rampant corruption of the Mexican police. The Mexicans offer a counter argument that the problem would not exist at all if not for U.S. demand for drugs. Bersin continues, “Mexico points moreover, to the not infrequent conviction of U.S. border officials on bribery charges as evidence that corruption knows no nationality at the border.”^[8] Despite this basic disagreement and the difficulties in catching drug smuggling along the border, both sides have tried extensively to stop the drug flow.

Catching Coyotes: The High and Low Tech Approach

Increased economic trade between the United States and Mexico as a result of NAFTA, led to increased drug smuggling. The legal exports between the two countries doubled in the brief time between 1986 and 1993. This allowed drug cartels to hide narcotics in goods being imported into the U.S.^[9] Andreas wrote that Mexican drug smugglers set up warehouses and trucking companies as fronts for their drug smuggling activities. The drug dealers know that statistically only a fraction of the trucks crossing the border can be inspected. One unfortunate drug smuggler was caught with eight tons of cocaine hidden in cans of jalapeño peppers. That is eight tons in only one truck. The smugglers hide the drugs disguised as legal goods. In fact some cartels hired consultants to see which product went through customs with the least chance of being stopped.^[10] The collapse of the Soviet Union found the Department of Defense in need of a way to justify its expenditures. The military complex tuned to stopping drug smuggling and brought with it a whole slew of high tech smuggling countermeasures. The government has tried magnetic footfall detectors, infrared body sensors, and a photo- identification system.^[11] The Clinton administration began to employ numerous helicopters, radar planes and interceptors in the drug war. Along with the high tech, America has also developed a transnational policing force. Historian Maria Celia Toro has argued that the power of the DEA has risen exponentially in recent decades. Toro wrote, “The true internationalization of United States police, anti-drug agents in particular began in the 1970s…their power today is overwhelming.” Toro explained that this power has brought into question Mexican national sovereignty as the DEA has employed such practices as renditions of Mexican nationals.^[12] In addition to all of the high tech smuggling countermeasures the United States also relies on some tried and true methods. As reported in the New York Times on March 7, 2007 the U.S. employs a small group of Native American trackers called the “Shadow Wolves” to track down and capture drug smugglers crossing the border on foot. The Shadow Wolves are a program stated in the early 1970’s that employs traditional Native American tracking skills. These skills allow them to seize 100,000 pounds of illegal drugs a year. Despite these successes the Shadow Wolves themselves, admit they are only putting a small dent in what is actually getting through and into the United States.^[13] Despite all of the gadgets and traditional methods drugs are still getting through, everyday. The smugglers change and develop new methods faster than law enforcement can counter them. Increased border security simple led to the rise in number of coyotes, or guides to get them across the border.^[14]

Border Towns: The Tragic Tale of the New Wild, Wild West

Drug trafficking out of Mexico is leading to what is sometimes being called the “Colombianization of Mexico.”^[15] In the border areas the government is losing control to immensely powerful, and violent drug cartels. This process has resulted in a steep rise in violent crimes, many of which go unpunished. In January 2005 New York Times Reporter Ginger Thompson wrote, “Mexico’s drug war has begun to move north of the border…fighting among Mexico’s most powerful cartels has spawned a wave of violence that at times turned the streets into battlefields and plazas overtaken by gunmen firing grenades and assault weapons.”^[16] Thompson reports that the FBI believes that in border town Nuevo Laredo, one person was killed a day and two people were kidnapped every month. In the year 2000, in the Tijuana area alone there were 25 murders a month 18 of which were gangland style executions.^[17] The rise in violent crimes is directly related to the Mexican drug gangs fighting for influence in the border areas. In addition to the increased violence the border areas are also experiencing an increase in drug usage. Once seen as merely a route for drugs, the border areas are quickly succumbing to a drug epidemic. A report in Drug and Alcohol Dependence states in 2005 that “Illicit drug use appears to have increased in Mexico over the past ten years…trends in opium cultivation and heroin production in some Mexico states explain these observations, however, other factors such as the recent increased enforcement along the U.S. Mexico border…may be contributing factors.”^[18] This increased drug use has compounded the tragedy in the border areas.

Conclusions:

In there analysis of recent literature concerning the U.S.-Mexico border, Josiah McC. Heyman and Howard Campbell wrote, “We desperately need to know more ‘real’ information about the border drug trade-verifiable information about how it works in daily life, how much it affects families, businesses, society and culture.” The pair laments the fact that as of 2004 there was still much work to be done on that subject, and many others involving border towns. ^[19] What is known is that increased border enforcement has had some unexpected consequences. Susan Bibler Coutin wrote that there has been, “the professionalization of smuggling operations, the rise of smuggling costs for illegal immigrants, and increased crime along the U.S. Mexico border.”^[20]

References

Annotated Bibliography

Andreas, Peter, “U.S.: Mexico: Open Markets, Closed Border” Foreign Policy, No.103, Summer, 1996. Andreas’s article examines how a growingly open border allows for increased clandestine activity across nations, such as smuggling and illegal immigration.

Bersin, Alan D. “El Tercer Pais: Reinventing the U.S./ Mexico Border,” Stanford Law Review, Vol. 48, No 5. May, 1996. Bersin’s article describes how the attention of both the United States and Mexico is turning toward the border due to three complex issues, NAFTA, immigration and narcotics smuggling. Bersin offers four recommendations to alleviate the problems that are afflicting the border areas. The article also explains the basic differences in understanding between the two nations regarding the drug war.

Falco, Mathea. “U.S. Drug Policy: Addicted to Failure,” Foreign Policy, No. 102 Spring, 1996. Falco discusses how the United States insistence to focus in on the supply side of the drug problem has doomed American efforts to failure. Falco details the history of drug enforcement and offers recommendations for future policy.

Heyman, Josiah McC., “Recent Research on the U.S.- Mexico Border,” Latin American Research Review, Vol. 39, No.3, October 2004. Heyman’s piece is a review of the most current literature regarding the border. Of interest to this paper is his discussion of the work of Charles Bowden and Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez. Both of who have written extensively about crime and drug issues in border towns

Toro, Maria Celia, “The Internationalization of Police: The DEA in Mexico,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No.2, Rethinking History and the Nation State: Mexico and the United States as a Case Study: A Special Issue. Sep., 1999 Toro analyzes the history of American drug enforcement in relations to Mexico. Toro argues that the DEA has grown in power as crime has become more and more transnational in nature. This growth in the power of the DEA has led them to challenge the national sovereignty of Mexico as they engage in renditions and other activities.