Mexico updates border infrastructure

In a move to slow the flow of weapons and drug money to cartel gangs, the Mexican government is updating their border entry points with new infrastructure. The improvements include newer gates, vehicle scales and cameras that will be used to prevent and detect illegal items from getting into Mexico.

One port that will see a significant change in border security will be in the Tijuana region. The Los Angeles Times reports that, "license-plate photographs will be run against a criminal database in Mexico City; a scale and vehicle-scanning system will determine if the car may be overloaded with contraband; and canine units will roam the area.”

In a separate move to combat cartel activity, Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, is set to test an anonymous international crime tip system. The system’s purpose is to allow people in Mexico to report crimes without having to worry about corrupt police officers intercepting the call and retaliating. The program will begin in December.

Credit: post image: http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/1237976118000/00779/eng_mexico_teaser_B_779148g.jpg

Border update

The BBC recently put out a multimedia story titled Mexico’s Juarez on a path to anarchy, which explains the perspective of people living in the town. The article points out that one belief is that the drug war is the result of poverty and political corruption.

On poverty, one Mexican journalist is quoted in the article:

"We have an unsustainable economy - a globalised economy - which pays very low wages. That allowed an alternative economy to be created which also globalised - drugs. Both economies are playing here. Juarez is a very important place for both."

And on corruption, a Mexican business man is quoted:

"Nothing functions well, therefore anyone can take advantage of the system. So what we're seeing now is a [illegal] drug industry that's taking advantage of the system - of the way things work.

"And to get rid of it like the federal government is trying to do now is going to cause a lot of problems. So this violence is a consequence of all this."

The problems occuring at border areas in Mexico has led officials in the U.S. to try and find ways to help remedy the situation. One idea that keeps coming up is gun control. Former head of U.S. Custom and Border Protection under both Bush administrations, Robert C. Bonner, is advocating for the reinstitution of a ban on assault weapons. An article from the Washington Times wrote that Bonner is calling for the United States to tighten security along its border and to further investigate gun sellers in the U.S.

Bonner was quoted as saying that the solution to these problems must be tackled by both the U.S. and Mexico.

"But successful efforts will require closer collaboration between U.S. and Mexican border law enforcement agencies, and this will depend on strengthening law enforcement capacity in the border region, including enhancing the professionalism of enforcement agencies to make them more corruption-resistant," he said.

One growing issue of concern is a press release put out by the Texas Department of Public Safety titled,Mexican cartels and gangs recruiting in Texas schools (pdf). The warning states that there is a growing trend of cartels trying to entice young people into becoming drug smugglers along the border. "The Mexican cartels constantly seek new ways to smuggle drugs and humans into Texas are now using state based gangs and our youth to support their operations on both sides of the border."

Ban on Automatic Weapons Urged

According to the AP news, The Bi national Task Force on the United States-Mexico Border has recommended that the U.S. should immediately instate an assault weapons ban in order to improve the security of both the U.S. and Mexico.

One co-chairman of the Task Force, Robert Bonner, was quoted in the AP saying, “Improving our efforts ... will weaken the drug cartels and disrupt their illegal activities, and make it easier ultimately to dismantle and destroy them.”

In 1994 President Clinton instated an assault weapons ban. According to a Newsweek article, that ban lapsed five years ago and since then the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has “lifted virtually all restrictions on imports of foreign-made assault weapons, permitting a flood of cheap Romanian, Bulgarian and other Eastern European AK-47s to enter the country, according to gun-control groups.”

At the end of the 1994 assault weapons ban, the NRA put out a press release titled “Finally, the end of a sad era – Clinton Gun Ban stricken from the books!” The release argued that the gun ban was a “misguided law, which had no effect on the actions of criminals, but penalized law-abiding citizens, [and] was built on a campaign of lies. It was ended through a campaign of education, facts, and grassroots activism. The sunset of this ban was only made possible through the tireless efforts of millions of NRA members and tens of millions of American gun owners over the past 10 years.”

In February of 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder told the press that the Obama administration planned to reinstate the assault weapons ban. However, the Obama administration has since put the assault weapons ban on the back burner, claiming that Congress is too tied up with economic recovery and health care to deal with the ban at this time.

Global Public Policy Forum at UTEP

As the drug violence along the Texas-Mexico border continues, most seem dumbfounded as to how to address the problem. Last week, The University of Texas at El Paso hosted a bi-national drug conference to talk about the problems in order to better understand them. The conference hosted 30 speakers from both Mexico and the U.S.

An article by the San Antonio Express News quoted retired federal agent Terry Nelson as saying, “The global war on drugs is probably the greatest public policy failure of all time.” The Express article goes on to quote a California state judge, James Gray, as saying that drug crimes are one large part of why the U.S. leads the world in incarceration of their own people.



The El Paso Newspaper Tree, an online news site, pointed out in their coverage that two Obama admistation officials opted out of the conference at the last minute. “At a panel discussion organized by the El Paso Press Club on Saturday, UTEP Professor Kathy Staudt announced that President Obama’s border czar Alan Bersin and National drug control policy czar Gil Kerlikowske surprised organizers by bowing out days before the start of the conference.”

The fact that the federal officials did not show up was no surprise to El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles. “"I don't know why you're all so surprised about the federal government's unwillingness to address this because, quite frankly, they've ignored the problem for years, and that's why we're in the situation we're in now," Wiles told the Newspaper Tree.

Perry to Deploy "Recon Rangers"

In what he is calling a move to make Texans more secure, Texas governor Rick Perry has announced the deployment of a special team of Texas Rangers along the Texas-Mexico border. The special team is being called the “Recon Rangers” and was described in the Fort Worth Star Telegram as “resembling a military style commando unit in a foreign war zone.” In addition to the recon team, Perry has asked that a 200 member task force of Texas’ National Guard be deployed to assist in the operations. Perry said that in August of this year the team of recon rangers began monitoring private farms and ranches where cartels and human trafficking activities are thought to occur.

In a speech in Irving, Texas on September 10, Perry said that the creation of the recon rangers is necessary because the federal government has not paid enough attention to violence on the Texas-Mexico border. "Texas continues to deal with the federal government's abject failure to secure our international border," and he added later that “I have no idea why Washington has been so averse to defending, securing the Southern border."



Some have accused Perry of using the border issue as a way to charge up his campaign. An article by the Houston Chronicle quoted Senator Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, as saying, “Rick Perry gets real revved up right around election time. From border cameras to failed DPS funding, his border security measures have been abject failures.” Some of the local officials have also voiced their opinions about Perry’s plan. Laredo’s mayor, Raul Salinas, said that he is glad that Rangers have been deployed but would “appreciate coordination and cooperation with local authorities, because we can be of assistance. … We're the first responders in combating the drug cartels.”