Law and Border

Our presidential candidates demand "stronger action" against both illegal immigration and illegal drugs. But those goals conflict. The War on Drugs makes border enforcement much harder!

America's 44-year-long Drug War hasn't made a dent in American drug use or the supply of illegal drugs. If it had some positive effect, prices of drugs would have increased, but they haven't. American authorities say drugs are more available than ever.

Drug prohibition, like alcohol prohibition, creates fat profits that invite law-breaking.

Cato's Ted Galen Carpenter says, "Economists estimate that about 90 percent of the retail price of illicit drugs is due to this black market premium." Ninety-percent profits inspire lots of criminal risk-taking.

"Washington's policy empowers the most ruthless traffickers -- those willing to use violence, intimidation and exploitation of the vulnerable to gain market share." Continues Carpenter: "When drugs are outlawed, only outlaws will sell drugs."

Since the drug gangs can't settle disputes in court, they settle them with guns. In Latin America, they've killed thousands of people.

"Honduras has been living in an emergency," says Honduran President Juan Hernandez. "The root cause is that the United States and Colombia carried out big operations in the fight against drugs."

Mexico's former president, Vicente Fox, now supports legalization. Leaders of Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica and Bolivia have begun to object to the militaristic anti-drug tactics pushed by the United States.

Yet Hillary Clinton called taxpayer money spent on counter-narcotics efforts in Central America "money well spent."

She's closed-minded and wrong. Our Drug War creates the carnage that drives poor Latin Americans to abandon their villages and move north. That increases resentment against immigrants, as expressed by Donald Trump, who said, "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime." Some do bring drugs, but most wouldn't bring crime if they could legally do business with us.

"Coyotes," who help impoverished refugees escape, often require even the children to become drug mules -- to smuggle small amounts of drugs. The children obey, since many fled places where they'd be shot at or tortured by gangs. They know the drug gangs and coyotes are their only hope for reaching a better life.

Drug profits give smugglers the money to do what poverty-stricken immigrants can't: dig long, high-tech tunnels with lighting and ventilation systems. A border fence doesn't secure the border when immigrants -- and criminals -- can tunnel underneath it.

U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy recently bragged to reporters about "the fifth super-tunnel we've intercepted."

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent Derek Benner claimed that the interception dealt "a stunning blow to the Mexican cartel who built it."

But that's absurd. Benner admitted they'd done the same thing two years before "in virtually the same scenario." They found five of how many? Hundreds? With a border almost 2,000 miles long, they're unlikely to find them all.

Drug prohibition, by making drug cartels rich, enables them to build a literal underground railroad to the north. The whole process -- dig, build, raid, destroy, repeat -- is just one more pointless activity that happens when government tries to suppress popular activities such as drug use.

Other countries are wising up. Argentina, Peru, Mexico and Portugal decriminalized small amounts of drugs. Uruguay legalized marijuana entirely, as have Colorado and Washington State.

The Center for Investigative Reporting says 90 percent of the drugs seized on the U.S.-Mexico border are some form of marijuana, meaning almost every time the Border Patrol makes a drug bust, it confiscates a drug that's legal in Colorado.

We keep trying to do things the hard way -- spending over $1 trillion on the Drug War. If there were a clear benefit, you might say it was worth it. Instead, it yields death, dislocation of populations and enrichment of murderous cartels, without reducing drug abuse. Why do we put up with this?

Government's attempts to prohibit what people want tend to fail. The wars on immigration and drugs are two more wars we won't win.

Any “war” that doesn’t involve the Armed Forces breaking and destroying things is not a war. A plain, and very painful, truth. When various political interest groups start putting restrictions on the Armed Forces ability to break and destroy things our defeat becomes a matter of time. This has been a military truth since Korea - an armistice that is over 60 years old? This also applies to non-wars so labeled by politicians for their personal political gain (aka votes for election and re-election).

“War” on Poverty - the oldest of these such wars. It started in the mid-1960s under LBJ. How well has that “war” gone?

“War” on drugs. It started in the 1980s under Reagan. How well has that gone?

“War’ on illegal immigration - our latest “war”. How is that “war” going?

We already have Congress, Senate, Presentdential laws on the books, why aren't we having them enforced?

Because we have been lazy with our voting, we are a busy nation, working, putting food on our tables, taking care of our children, and not noticing the ‘lies’ that we are being told...we vote in people who don't want what we think we are voting for, therefore, we don't get what WE want...

Our government is so corrupted, and no one has the backbone to correct this, oh there are a few that try, but where is the support?

And now we are faced with ‘today’...are we going to stand up finally and decide this is OUR election, not someone else’s that does things like they have always been done? I hope not, I'm not!! I'm researching all the candidates, not good on what I'm reading, but some really good choices...

America has finally reached the point where WE the Legal Voters of America has had enough...it's not just business as usual and your seeing the ‘runners’ of the election game in a tail spin because WE are taking over...we have basically taken this over and they are upset...

We this is OUR country now...WE are going to decide who is the right person for the job, no one has this right but US, the Legal American Voter...

There are some who say ‘this is a movement’ well yes it is....these people who shove stuff down our throats are trying as hard as they can to have it ‘their’ way again, and it's not working...

I'm sure the ‘dead files’ and voter fraud is going to be a very big part of this national election, but if you go back to Bush vs Gore you will find that there are laws to protect the right of the Voters...

Gore was the ‘runners of the election’ person, but there were some that decided then that wasn't going to happen, and there are the ones that say Bush's brother Jeb gave George the election, I wasn't there to count the chads, I wasn't there to see who was doing what, but it came out that Bush won...

Well now we have Jeb, and he's NOT the one you want..I have researched him and he's not his Father nor his Brother...but he's the ‘runners’ of the election person to shove down our throats, well try to, it's not going to happen this time...

Whoever you are going to vote for, do the research on them, dig back in their past, see what they have done for this Country, how much have they supported the Country, not the ‘money bags’ that think they can buy this election, because bottom line, that's what these people do, they ‘buy’ and then use them as ‘puppets’ to get who they want to shove around and tell us ‘who we are going to vote for’ don't this time, take a firm stand and vote YOUR way!!!! For OUR Country....

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