Tighter security along the California and Arizona borders with Mexico has led smugglers to make another run at the New Mexico frontier, a congressional subcommittee has been told. Trafficking in illegal drugs and illegal aliens has surged along New Mexico’s 180-mile border with Mexico as a result, officials testified Tuesday at a hearing of the subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy and human resources.
U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of the subcommittee, heard statements from local commanders of various agencies that comprise the Department of Homeland Security about the impact of the drug trade on Southwestern border security. The hearing was held at the invitation of U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., who also participated. Souder said the Southwest border remains the primary conduit for illegal drugs into the United States. Up to three-fourths of such narcotics cross that frontier, he said. But the primary mission is stopping terrorists from crossing, said Luis Barker, chief patrol agent for the El Paso Sector of the Border Patrol. From fiscal 2002 to the present, Barker said, checkpoint operations including five in New Mexico account for 18 percent of Border Patrol narcotic seizures. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Kenneth Cates said criminal smuggling organizations are adaptable -- they smuggle narcotics one day and human cargo the next. Those who pooh-pooh the dangers of loosey goosey border control with Mexico and label critics "racists" or "isolationists" without their visionary genius of defending America by spreading democracy around the globe need their "common sense" vision re-tested, IMO. |
