The 'Dangerous' Border?

[Richard]

May be of interest to some - however - YMMV...and so it goes...

Richard

The 'Dangerous' Border: Actually One Of America's Safest Places
Time, 30 Jul 2010

When U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled on Wednesday that key provisions of Arizona's new anti-immigration law were unconstitutional, she could have also declared them unnecessary. That is, if the main impetus behind the controversial legislation was, as Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said when she signed it in April, "border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration." The fact is, despite the murderous mayhem raging across the border in Mexico, the U.S. side, from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, is one of the nation's safest corridors.

According to the FBI, the four large U.S. cities (with populations of at least 500,000) with the lowest violent crime rates — San Diego, Phoenix and the Texas cities of El Paso and Austin — are all in border states. "The border is safer now than it's ever been," U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling told the Associated Press last month. Even Larry Dever, the sheriff of Arizona's Cochise County, where the murder last March of a local rancher, believed to have been committed by an illegal immigrant, sparked calls for the law, conceded to the Arizona Republic recently that "we're not seeing the [violent crime] that's going on on the other side."

Consider Arizona itself — whose illegal-immigrant population is believed to be second only to California's. The state's overall crime rate dropped 12% last year; between 2004 and 2008 it plunged 23%. In the metro area of its largest city, Phoenix, violent crime — encompassing murder, rape, assault and robbery — fell by a third during the past decade and by 17% last year. The border city of Nogales, an area rife with illegal immigration and drug trafficking, hasn't logged a single murder in the past two years.

It is true that Phoenix has in recent years seen a spate of kidnappings. But in almost every case they've involved drug traffickers targeting other narcos for payment shakedowns, and the 318 abductions reported last year were actually down 11% from 2008. Either way, the figure hardly makes Phoenix, as Arizona Senator John McCain claimed last month, "the No. 2 kidnapping capital of the world" behind Mexico City. A number of Latin American capitals can claim that dubious distinction.

An even more telling example is El Paso. Its cross-border Mexican sister city, Ciudad Juárez, suffered almost 2,700 murders last year, most of them drug-related, making it possibly the world's most violent town. But El Paso, a stone's throw across the Rio Grande, had just one murder. A big reason, say U.S. law-enforcement officials, is that the Mexican drug cartels' bloody turf wars generally end at the border and don't follow the drugs into the U.S. Another, says El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles, is that "the Mexican cartels know that if they try to commit that kind of violence here, they'll get shut down."

Which points to perhaps the most important factor: the U.S. has real cops — not criminals posing as cops, as is so often the case in Mexico — policing the border's cities and states. Americans and Mexicans may call their border region "seamless" when it comes to commerce and culture, but that brotherly ideal doesn't apply to law enforcement. That's especially true since state and local police are backed along the border by the thousands of federal agents deployed there. Thus the tough Arizona law — which seeks to allow local and state police to check a person's immigration status, a provision that Judge Bolton agreed opened the door to racial profiling by officers, and requires immigrants to carry their documents at all times — was sparked by largely unfounded fears.

Arizona law-enforcement officials say they believe the Cochise County rancher, Robert Krentz, was killed by an illegal immigrant — perhaps a coyote, or migrant smuggler — or a drug trafficker. His last radio transmission home as he inspected his property indicated he was helping a struggling person he believed to be one of the migrants who regularly trespass private land while crossing into the U.S. But while such assaults are hardly unheard of along the border — and while it's hardly irrational to worry about Mexico's violence eventually spilling into the U.S. — they have hardly risen to a level that justified the draconian Arizona bill. (In fact, if an illegal immigrant did murder Krentz, it would be the first time in more than a decade that a migrant has killed an American along the border's Tucson, Ariz., sector.)

"There's a real disconnect between emotions and facts when it comes to the border," says El Paso city councilman Beto O'Rourke. "You've got a lot of politicians exploiting this fear that the Mexicans are coming over to kill us."

The Arizona law, which Judge Bolton also said infringed on federal jurisdiction, may be a product of border bluster. But it has more than succeeded in getting Washington's attention. Even though the Obama Administration was one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the law, the President is sending 1,200 more National Guard troops to the region this weekend. What's more, our broken immigration system — and the federal government's feckless failure to address it — is a front-burner issue again.

The nation's border is actually a safe place. The nation's debate about it, at least politically, is anything but.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...007474,00.html

[1stindoor]

Interesting story. And after having lived in El Paso for the last 10 months I can safely say that it's not as safe as they're making it out to be. It's just better than Juarez. Maybe that's why the mayor of Juarez lives in El Paso.

[steel71]

I guess they haven't heard of Los Zetas...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSJ31...ayer_embedded#!

[DasRonin]

About a year and a half ago a "head hunter" found my resume and wanted to broker with a manufacturing company with offices in El Paso and a manufacturing plant in Juarez. They were looking for a Security Manager. My resume was presented and rejected. Too much LE experience besides my corporate experience. It seems they were looking for someone with exclusive administrative management experience, no LE /personal protection experience was desired.

My wife was somewhat relieved they turned me down. I have always wondered if they ever rethought the qualifications for that position considering how violent it has become. There is definitely some "omission" in the reporting of violence as if they pretend it is not happening everyone will begin to believe it, and it will magically end!

[1stindoor]

Your LE experience probably told them you knew better and would therefore need to be paid more.

[Sacamuelas]

ANYTIME I read about crime statistics.... I put on my waders. Mayors, police chiefs, etc can administratively lower their area's crime stats by encouraging that certain offenses are charged as lesser crimes. It makes things "look" better..... but the reality is quite different.

[Todd 1]

There is way too much info to put into a post, so I just copy/pasted a few things. The entire national drug threat assessment for 2010 along with figures, tables and maps can be found here: http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs38/38661/index.htm

Drug Trafficking Organizations

Wholesale-level DTOs, especially Mexican DTOs, constitute the greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States. These organizations derive tens of billions of dollars annually from the trafficking and abuse of illicit drugs and associated activities. All of the adverse societal impact resulting from the illicit drug trade begins with the criminal acts of DTOs that produce, transport, and distribute the drugs.

Drug Trafficking by Criminal Gangs

The influence of Hispanic and African American street gangs is expanding as these gangs gain greater control over drug distribution in rural and suburban areas and acquire drugs directly from DTOs in Mexico or along the Southwest Border.
Hispanic prison gangs, primarily in Southwest Border states, are gaining strength by working directly with Mexican DTOs to acquire wholesale quantities of drugs and by controlling most street gangs in areas along the Southwest Border.

U.S. Southwest Border Smuggling and Violence

Most illicit drugs available in the United States and thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled into the United States across the nearly 2,000-mile Southwest Border, including through the Tohono O'odham Reservation (see text box). Conversely, a significant amount of illegal firearms and weapons as well as bulk currency are smuggled from the Southwest Border region into Mexico. Intensified counterdrug operations, in addition to intracartel and intercartel warfare and plaza competition, have resulted in unprecedented violence in northern Mexico and the potential for increasing violence in the United States.

Counterdrug operations on both sides of the Southwest Border have intensified in recent years, resulting in increased pressure on Mexican DTOs.
Mexican DTOs use Southwest Border gangs to enforce and secure smuggling operations in Mexico and, to a lesser extent, the United States, particularly in California and Texas border areas.

Competition among rival Mexican drug cartels for control of several prominent smuggling plazas has caused a significant rise in the level of violence in Mexico and a potential rise in the United States.

Source: http://www.justice.gov/ndic/

[JumpinJoe1010]

He supports gays and illegal immigration. Sounds as though he has an agenda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Jamaica

I also found it IRONIC that this writer, by this name, who more or less supports drug trafficking IMHO. All the while another soldier by the same name, from the Special Forces community, who paid the ultimate price preserving our freedom.

SGT Timothy Padgett

http://afghanistan.pigstye.net/artic...adgettTimothyP

[dr. mabuse]

Gee, this info from Time magazine makes me feel much better.

Unfortunately, one of my students was viciously raped by an illegal, who was released on bail of course and ta-da, disappeared down south per his relatives. The Times article would not impress her.

This scenario happens over and over again. This disappearing act is quite common for illegals.

Roughly 1 in 4 rapes, robberies and murders are by illegals in the DFW area ( where Richard and I live, BTW ).

How do I know? The people who lock them up, do the head count and process them told me so.

Oh, wait, I forgot. We're safe. The MSM tells me so.

Safe as a Christian baby in the Punjab province.

Rant mode off... for now.

[alright4u]

Originally Posted by Sacamuelas

ANYTIME I read about crime statistics.... I put on my waders. Mayors, police chiefs, etc can administratively lower their area's crime stats by encouraging that certain offenses are charged as lesser crimes. It makes things "look" better..... but the reality is quite different.

We had Serpas in Nasville. You got him NOLA.

[Defender968]

Originally Posted by Sacamuelas

ANYTIME I read about crime statistics.... I put on my waders. Mayors, police chiefs, etc can administratively lower their area's crime stats by encouraging that certain offenses are charged as lesser crimes. It makes things "look" better..... but the reality is quite different.

100% Correct, And it happens every day, in many large cities...especially those that benefit from tourism, my old dept used to write up home invasions as vandalisms, guy kicks in the front door, gets spooked and bails before meeting the home owners face to face.... just a vandalism...move along nothing to see here. Crime statistics are like any other statistic...what's the old saying, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics...