Posted on 06/11/2010 8:26:04 AM PDT by AuntB
Just last year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified before a Senate panel that Mexican drug cartels were operating in as many as 230 American cities. During her testimony, she claimed that cartels are the greatest organized crime threat to the United States.
The federal government’s refusal to secure the border has enabled Mexican cartels to operate across America. In April, a North Carolina DEA special agent reported that Mexican drug organizations have taken over most of the Charlotte heroin market.
At the same time in Oregon, about a dozen armed marijuana growers were caught working for a Mexican drug family. Last December, Salvador Guzman, a member of a Mexico-based cartel, imported and concealed kilograms of cocaine in the drive shaft of vehicles. He transported the drugs to the Midwest, dismantled the drive shafts, extracted the cocaine and delivered it to customers in Ohio and Tennessee.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations are now operating in every region of the United States. Last year, there were more than 200 incursions of ultra-light aircraft crossing the southwest border. These aircraft have become the transport of choice for many cartel operatives and traffickers to ferry drugs and cash and help give cartels links in virtually every state in America.
The Department of Justice now reports that Mexican cartels have expanded operations in Florida, the Mid-Atlantic, New York, New Jersey, and New England. Cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, and New York City, as well as parts of North Carolina, serve as consolidation points for tens of billions of dollars in bulk cash drug proceeds that are smuggled into Mexico.
Mexican cartels are also expanding outdoor marijuana cultivation in the U.S. from their traditional strongholds in California, Washington, and Oregon to states such as Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Cartels aren’t the only organizations that see our ill-defended border as their strategic opportunity. There is little doubt that terrorists are constantly attempting to illegally cross into our country to try and harm innocent Americans.
Since January, Mexican immigration officials have detained more than 600 individuals from more than two dozen nations trying to enter the United States illegally, including those from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.
Our porous border endangers every American, yet Washington refuses to make border security a priority. President Obama’s recent proposal, which would provide up to 1,200 members of the National Guard across a 2,000 mile border, would only add one guardsman for every 1.6 miles of border.
Obama’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2011 cuts the Secure Border Initiative by more than 25 percent and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program by more than 12 percent. At first, the White House even proposed cutting the Border Patrol by 181 agents, before many of us in Congress pushed back. The Obama’s proposals are an unacceptably small short-term solution to a large long-term border problem.
Last week, I offered an amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill that would have deployed needed resources to secure our border. My amendment was fully paid for and reflected what law enforcement on the ground said they needed, but Senate Democrats blocked it using a procedural maneuver.
Some argued that preserving stimulus funds was a higher priority. Others argued that border security must remain linked to broader immigration reforms. I believe that credible immigration reform must begin with border security, because too many Americans no longer trust the federal government to secure the border or enforce the law.
The time to act is now. These cartels already have a known presence in 48 states and the District of Columbia. Until Washington restores its credibility on border security more states will be forced to act much like Arizona did. Washington needs a sense of urgency, or many American families will lose their sense of security.
Border security isn’t just a border state problem, it’s a United States problem.
This is Terrorism by invasion. Cornyn failed to realize that 88,000 acres were burned in Calif. last summer in the LaBrea Fire, set by Mexican drug cartels. These cartels are fighting each other on our rural roads for control of territory.
Not just because of the drug smuggling and other crimes they commit but by the simple fact they crossed that border illegally, it is my problem too, here in Illinois and every other state. We are still the United States!
Actually, securing the borders is *supposed* to be the federal government’s job, so it doesn’t become the state’s problem.
“Since January, Mexican immigration officials have detained more than 600 individuals from more than two dozen nations trying to enter the United States illegally, including those from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.”
Ping!
“We are still the United States!”
Some days I wonder.
Nominally, yes. But in truth, we're not that united anymore.
And have essentially occupied our national parks.
I don't have time to read the article right now, but what are the Mexican officials doing with them while they are detained? Teach them spanish and letting them try again?
I wouldn't put it past them.
Good article in the rising power and influence of Mexican drug cartels in the United States.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/webster/100518
I believe they’ll be the prime enforcers of the eventual “reconquista.” Our enemies from all sides know we are a weakening, declining country and are filling the vacuum quickly.
Active MSNBC poll!
96%
Yes
1,071,308 votes
In July, Arizona will begin enforcing a new law that requires law enforcement officers to check someone’s immigration status if they have reason to suspect that he or she is in the country illegally. Do you think this is a good idea?
Since Corrnyn represents TX, why doesn’t he use his influence in the Senate to get a bill passed to station the National Guard along the border in big enough numbers to actually do something? These guards should have the ability to make arrests.
We’ve been having this problem in Texas as long as I can remember.
Here they are !!! Take a look !!!
More information on the wonderful illegals now inside our country thanks to the Demoncrats ...
Take a look at this FBI Wanted for Murder List to see how wonderful diversity is !!!
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/fugitives/vc/murders/vc_murders.htm
About 90% Hispanic, for those who don’t wish to count (or see all their ugly mugs)
It is contrary to a sense of justice and fair play to cater to illegal aliens. This is similar to rewarding those who at a grocery store push ahead of a long line and then are rewarded for doing it. Except illegal aliens cause serious harm to us - among them violent drug dealers, terrorists, welfare cheats, and other undesirables.
I cannot understand the adoration of illegal aliens to the point where their supporters are saying, "You break our laws and we will reward you for it."
The biggest threat to this country comes from our open borders and the hordes of illegals with their sociopathic sense of entitlement.
Thank goodness there’s no word of deportation. These folks should be provided with a pathway, to kill us. It’s the only humane things to do you know.
We need diversity in those who wish to harm this nation.
REFERENCE Over and above the millions who violate our borders, 1.5 million legal foreign workers come to the US each year, as a matter of course.
But this number isn’t high enough for Illinois Dem Cong Gutierrez (a former cab driver currently under federal investigation) and his 92 co-sponsors. Their Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill includes a provision called “recapture” that will add up all the supposedly “unused” work visas since 1992 and issue them immediately.
This is a complete fraud, as all unused work visas are rolled over to the family reunification category the next year as it is.
Gutierrez' Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill will create 100,000 visas from countries that send the most illegal immigrants every year. According to the State Department, this will mean 550,000 new foreign workers.
AND GET THIS Mexico is the staging area for Third World and other illegals preparing to violate our borders. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill rewards Mexico b/c they calculatedly promote illegal immigration. Gutierrez' bill will make it much easier for more illegal aliens to break in.
Under the Gutierrez Bill, to prove they have jobs and were in the country BEFORE Congress passed amnesty, illegals are allowed to use stolen ID's, fake green cards, and fraudulent SS numbers....... without fear of prosecution.
Contrary to Obama’s claim that CIR bill will increase border security, it does just the opposite.........
<> it guts successful enforcement measures,
<> limits raids on illegal immigrants,
<> prohibits use of troops on the border,
<> replaces E-Verify used to ensure employers hire legal American workers,
<> overturns all state and local US laws that crackdown on illegal immigration,
<> abolishes 287(g) that allows local L/E and federal authorities to apprehend criminal illegals.
Gutierrez makes Van Jones look like a patriot.
Wake Up America, were being invaded by many different nationalities!!
Not a pretty picture, is it....
CONTACT YOUR US REPS: Why is the US government providing detention centers for illegal invaders who violated our borders that are newer, modern, with better health care, including just about everything else that is better than what battle-scarred US servicemen are getting in Veterans hospitals?
FOR YOUR REFERENCE ICE to make detention centers more humane
Houston Chronicle | June 8, 2010 | By SUSAN CARROLL
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are preparing to roll out a series of changes at several privately owned immigration detention centers, including relaxing some security measures for low-risk detainees and offering art classes, bingo and continental breakfast on the weekends.
The changes were welcomed by immigrant advocates who have been waiting for the Obama administration to deliver on a promise made in August to overhaul the nation's immigration detention system.
The 28 changes identified in the e-mail range from the superficial to the substantive. In addition to “softening the look of the facility” with hanging plants and offering fresh carrot sticks, ICE will allow for the “free movement” of low-risk detainees, expand visiting hours and provide unmonitored phone lines.
ICE officials said the changes are part of broader efforts to make the immigration detention system less penal and more humane. But the plans are prompting protests by ICE's union leaders, who say they will jeopardize the safety of agents, guards and detainees and increase the bottom line for taxpayers.
Tre Rebstock, president for Local 3332, the ICE union in Houston, likened the changes to creating “an all-inclusive resort” for immigration detainees. Other major changes include:
• Eliminating lockdowns and lights-out for low-risk detainees.
• Allowing visitors to stay as long as they like in a 12-hour period.
• Allowing low-risk detainees to wear their own clothing or other non-penal attire.
• Providing e-mail access and Internet-based free phone service.
Not about punishment "It's not about punishing people for a crime they committed.” Rosenberg said some of the changes, like new flower baskets, may seem small, but they will combine with the bigger changes to make a difference in the daily lives of detainees. “Taken together they will go some way to making this system less penal,” she said. (Excerpt) Read more at chron.com
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