A USA Today article published early last month sheds light on a multifaceted concern – whether illegal immigration or drug smuggling is more of a threat to the United States.
“These countries are all responding to demands coming into the United States,” said Edward Allen, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations. “The question of where the threat is greater or lesser is entirely our enforcement strategy.”
The article questions whether the federal government’s efforts to spike border security have come at the expense of drug smuggling prevention.
Up to 90 percent of the cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana smuggled through the Mexico border is passed through land ports, according to the USA Today article.
“From 2006 to 2010, the number of Customs and Border Protection officers who inspect people and cargo crossing through the ports of entry along the southwest border increased by 15%, while the number of CBP Border Patrol agents who patrol the rugged terrain between those ports increased by 59%, according to CBP figures.”
Legal ports of entry have become a weak link because border patrols at illegal ports of entry have increased substantially.
“As a result of the upset in Arizona over high levels of illegal immigration and drug smuggling, the U.S. has really bolstered [security efforts],” Allen said. “As long as you address nothing for the demand, there will always be weak links.”
In the 1990s, cocaine was a prevalent drug smuggled through Mexico, according to Allen. Customs agents became skilled at identifying smugglers, and the traffic then moved to Arizona – hence the contemporary crisis.
Allen said drug cartels are now using sophisticated methods of smuggling to transfer drugs across borders such as the Mexico-Texas border.
“There’s no way to seal a country successfully,” he said.
In March, President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa met at the White House to discuss foreign policy between the two nations. President Obama pledged to fight the drug cartels that plague the border.
According to World Policy Intitute’s World Policy Blog, President Obama also addressed the “demand side” of the problem, “As part of our own drug control strategy, we are focused on reducing the demand for drugs through education, prevention, and treatment,” Obama said.
