A line in the Sand. Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border

The Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security issues this interim report summarizing its findings regarding the criminal activity and violence taking place along the Southwest border of the United States between Texas and Mexico. The Texas-Mexico border region has been experiencing an alarming rise in the level of criminal cartel activity, including drug and human smuggling, which has placed significant additional burdens on Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies. This interim report will examine the roots of the criminal enterprise and its effects on the local populations, what steps are being taken or should be taken to counter the threat, and the significance of these issues for the overall homeland security of the United States.

A previous thread stated that arrests were down. Still, they come in droves:

"Paral's calculations show the following increases for congressional districts in the region:

# 45th District ---- Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs: up 18 percent, or 7,000, for a total of 45,000;

# 49th District ---- Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista: up 16 percent, or 5,000, for a total of 37,000;

# 50th District ---- Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Escondido: up 31 percent, or 10,000, for a total of 42,000.

# 51st District ---- Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego: up 72 percent, or 31,000, for a total of 74,000;

# 52nd District ---- Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon: up 57 percent, or 8,000, for a total of 22,000;

# 53rd District ---- Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego: up 18 percent, or 8,000, for a total of 52,000.

The numbers also show, the report says, that illegal immigrants make up 6.8 percent of the population in Bono's district; 5.6 percent in Issa's district; 6.3 percent in Bilbray's district; 11.2 percent in Filner's district; 3.3 percent in Hunter's district; and 7.8 percent in Davis' district.

The Pew Hispanic Center's Passel said that California continues to have the largest number of illegal immigrants, estimated to be as many as 2.75 million, about 10 percent of whom are living in this region. And yet, the highest percentage growth occurred in the South and Midwest.

In 1990, an estimated 3.5 million illegal immigrants were living in the U.S, with 80 percent of that population living in California, Texas, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Florida, he said.

By 2005, however, those same six states accounted for about 60 percent of the illegal immigrant population that increased by 200 percent since 1990, Passel said.

The growth outside of states that traditionally had higher numbers of illegal immigrants helps explain the increased attention over illegal immigration, Passel said.

The numbers also show that "attempting to control illegal immigration by border enforcement hasn't worked," Passel said.

Rep. Issa said the rise in the number of illegal immigrants throughout the country explains why the issue is at the forefront of the nation's political discussions.

Communities that once had a relative small Latino population, such as the congressional district represented by a hard-line immigration opponent, Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, are now also beginning to experience an increase in that segment of their population. The number of illegal immigrants in his Colorado district went from 6,000 in 2000 to about 14,000 in 2005, a 133 percent increase, according to the study. However, that number represents just 2.1 percent of the overall population of about 700,000 in his district."

72% INCREASE IN SAN DIEGO!! And isn't that where the best fence has been built?

Crime on the Texas/Mexico border is nothing new. The Texas Ranger deployed their own 'Special Forces" on the border long before they existed in the US Army.

Everything old is new again. 'Course back then it was cattle rustlers and crooks not dope smuggler and the like.

And revolutionary bandits, as per the Pancho Villa raid on Columbus, NM on 09 March 1916. Don't forget that one, because Mexico's banditos haven't.

The one A.M. raid caught both U.S. civilians and the approximately 350 US Army troops stationed nearby by surprise, and when it was over, several blocks of the town's businesses and homes had been burned to the ground and 18 Americans, mostly civilians, were dead.

What does America currently pay Central/South American governments annually in illegal drug interdiction? and moreover, what does America have to show for it? Since 2000, U.S. spending on military and police aid to Mexico has risen from $16.3 million to $57.8 million. A quarter billion dollars spent since 2000 to aid Mexico, not including the resources America has directly invested, and yet the shared border guarded in some places by no more than two strands of barbed wire fencing lying on dusty ground is still one of the most violent and deadly places in America.
U.S. aid to Mexico continues as $57.8 million (or $82,572 for each mile of the proposed 700 mile new border barrier) is to be spent annually. Wasted with no end to the squandering in sight. A business acquaintance once said if a capital expense could pay for itself within a calendar year, it would be a wise investment, a sound business expenditure. If the old adage is true, "you get what you pay for," for sure Americans are currently being handed the cheap disguised as border security by Washington. Lawmakers recently passed a provision to build a 700 mile barrier then quickly voted to divert the provided $1.2 billion funding of the barrier to other areas of interests not entirely related to its construction. Opponents of a substantial border barrier have repeatedly stated if the U.S. builds a 30ft high barrier, those intent to cross will just bring a 31ft high ladder. That very well may be true, but while a 31ft high ladder will get one to the top of the barrier, the next step would surely prove hazardously undesirable. Any crossers would then have to backpack another 31ft high ladder to scale the secondary wall of double fencing. Considering this, one is left only to wonder upon which side of securing America those stand and why.
A fence makes for good neighbors. A substantially secure fence returning America's investment by curbing illegal drug and human trafficking would be a very wise business decision. Expecting American lawmakers to make wise business decisions regarding the economics of a border barrier might just be asking too much.

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