Border Blogs: Expressing our Border Culture

Dear Rand:
I am a great admirer of your father, Ron Paul, and have followed your commentary closely. I congratulate you on your recent primary victory in Kentucky and hope you will be the next Senator.

There is no question in my mind of the clarity of your thinking relative to Libertarian ideals. I agree with most of what you say relative to libertarian ideology and recognize your courage in maintaining a strong adherence to your convictions.

However, I am increasingly uncomfortable with your adherence to your version of libertarian ideology even when presented with practical aspects of an issue that may militate nuance in application of theory to political practice.

It is increasingly evident to me you are an ideologue, to be sure, an idealistic one.

By this I mean, you are an individual that is a blindly partisan advocate or adherent of your ideology in spite of the facts of the situation or mitigating circumstances relative to a given issue.

I agree with your belief in limiting the interference of government of private business but question the wisdom of challenging established social custom and law.

For anyone living under racialist hatreds, prudence demands recognition of the pragmatic reality faced by a particular group and the consequence to the nation as a whole.

Again. Despite the fact reasonable people can consider the ideal approach to dealing with a particular issue abd agree with you, there is no question compromise is often necessary to accomplish a particular goal.

With respect to your most recent comments relative to British Petroleum, it seems disingenuous to defend an industry so heavily subsidized by the government. It is, to use your descriptor, "un-American" for you to defend an industry that is supported so heavily with public tax dollars.

Remove the subsidies and favored status of the oil industry and then I might feel empathy for your defense of "private" industry.

The disaster British Petroleum hashey has wrought in the Gulf of Mexico and, potentially, the entire American eastern seaboard makes anyone stand back and think twice before encouraging off-shore drilling and wary of defending the industry.

You are running for Senate and those that may have some inclination to support Libertarian ideals need to hear a voice; a prudent and pragmatic voice. To this end, you must articulate viewpoints fully cognizant of the practical realities Americans face not from a textbook on Libertarian theory but on the basis of prudent, pragmatic and sound analysis of the facts on the ground.

A long time conservative spoke to Arizona's SB 1070 shortly after her visit this week.

She wrote, "Emotions today ran very high for me as I finally understood the whole picture (of what Arizonans are experiencing).

I am not supportive of illegal aliens and I have never hired one, no matter how great the need.

Why?

Because I think it is exploiting them and if I am not part of the solution, I will never be a part of the problem. I think it is wrong to enter someone’s country illegally.

But having said that, I know that circumstances are different for many people. As a Child I lived illegally in Mexico, not my choosing but I was a child and had to do what my parents chose for me. So I know how it is to live with fear that someone in authority could find out. I therefore understand the constant fear that these people live under.

Living in the border, I know the conditions that poor people live in. Having lived and traveled throughout most of Mexico I know conditions are only getting worse. Being a member of the El Paso/ Ciudad Juarez area, I know the danger and the worsening conditions and violence that we are living in the border. So, if I had a family to support and I could not feed them, I feared for their and my life and I could not find a job in my own country, I would possibly also take the treacherous path of an illegal alien.

I know I look like an illegal, I am brown, I speak Spanish, I have a Spanish surname. But I am also a Texan and my family has been in this country even before it was part of the USA. I am an American, I am not Mexican even though in culture I can and have passed for one. My roots are Hispanic, European (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Norwegian), Native American (Apache- no I am not an Aztec nor Tigua) and Mexican.

I do not know what the answer to this problem of illegal immigration is. I don’t like the fact that our desert is being trashed.

I don’t like the fact that our resources have to be shared with uninvited guests but I am also a human being and a practicing Catholic and I cannot see a person hurt and beguildered and turn my back on them. I have helped many ilegals in my area whose employers did not pay them, I have paid them for them, I have bought them clothes, I have personally driven them back to their homes in Cd. Juarez so that they did not have to take buses or taxis with what they were given. To me it is normal and humane to help them. You do not beat a dying horse.

So how is this law affecting me? I don’t like the rhetoric, people saying that the US or one party hates immigrants when in reality that is a blatant lie. We don’t like illegal migration not legal migration. There is a tremendous difference and using the term for both is a dishonest assessment of the situation.

Are there racists?

Of course and anti-immigrant behavior has occurred to all immigrants in the USA but those immigrants wanted to stay here and made this their home. This is part of the History of the US, this situation is not unique and we survived all the other immigration challenges.

The majority of illegal migrants do no have those ties, they want to go back to Mexico once they have achieved their financial dreams. But reality is that many end up not ever going back and end up not participating in the system yet they want all the benefits of being a citizen. This is a double edged sword.

They come to this country to work, not to abuse the system nor to steal anything from anyone. They are mostly looking for work. So if we hire them, why are we surprised as a nation that they are here? We create a market and they fill it.

IN every city there is a corner, a church, a parking lot where they gather and the locals come to hire them. Why do the authorities permit this? They could or could not get paid. Who aids them if they are abused? We, as a nation, cannot create this problem and then turn around and criminalize these people because they are not committing a crime, they are only trying to survive, is that a crime?

What is happening in Arizona is not faring well to all Hispanics regardless of whether we are from here as I am or we immigrated as many have. So what is happening?

This law is not as offensive all by itself but it is giving power to entities that by following the constitution should not have. Protection of the home land and acceptance into our country is the responsibility of the federal government, not of local entities. IT is an illegal law simple and true.

However the anger of Hispanics in Arizona stems from a continuous assault on our culture, our language and us as a people.

In 2002 a law was passed that ended bilingual education in Arizona where 30 percent of the population is of Mexican descent and bilingual.

In 2004 even though no proof that illegals were voting was ever supplied or proven, the population had to start presenting IDs in order to vote.

In 2006 English Language learners were segregated, how on earth can they learn the language if they are not allowed to mingle with English speakers?

In that same year, Chicano History in School was prohibited. We study European history but the people of the Southwest were denied the right to know who and what they are.

Just recently it is proposed that teachers with accents may not be permitted to teach children in public schools. Since when does an accent dictate or gauge knowledge or ability to teach?

So this law is just the last drop in a series of unfair and anti-Mexican targeted laws that discriminate.

I know that it is obvious that the Arizona State government is overwhelmed.

Ranchers, environmentalists are having a fit over the state of the lands where these people travail. Schools and hospitals cannot support this extra activity of taking care of non-citizens.

But if we hire them and create this stream of illegal migration, how can we respond to this problem by criminalizing and further endangering their lives. Aren’t we the nation that helps others? So, why do we send millions to the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and forget that we are part of this continent called America? Do we forget that we took or if it makes us feel better bought in conditions that will always be in infamy half of Mexico’s territory.

Do we have a moral obligation to aid them now?

How we treat these illegal immigrants and how we solve this challenge will define this country and is a situation that is in peril to create civilian unrest and this bickering amongst parties and people does not solve the problem, it only adds wood to the fire.

illegals trying to get work from a possible client in a safe area

Is the solution to our problem a wall that can be jumped, militarization, more guns and equipment, more border patrol or is it a comprehensive package to help our neighbor be in parity with us, the most powerful nation that has ever existed in the history of the earth.

If we hire them out of the radar, why can’t we find a way to let them enter the country legally for work. The present visa system is not filling the need, regardless of what the Deparment of Labor and State may say or think.

States cannot take the role that belongs to the Federal Government in order to put a bandaid on a bleeding wound.

Let’s think creatively and lets take this challenge as the Americans whose values made us the beacon for the whole world.

Ezra Klein took Rand Paul to task for failing to answer Rachel Maddow's question, "Should [the] Woolworth lunch counter have been allowed to stay segregated? Sir, just yes or no."

Klein agreed with Dave Weigel that Paul's analysis of the Civil Rights Act that desegregated private businesses was not new or unusual. "Paul believes, as many conservatives believe, that the government should ban bias in all of its institutions but cannot intervene in the policies of private businesses."

Klein continues that Rand's views on the Civil Rights Act matter because Rand "will have to vote on quite a bit of legislation that uses the commerce clause to regulate private businesses."

He adds, "If this isn't about race, then it is about all questions relating to federal regulation of private enterprise. As a senator, Paul will be faced with that question frequently."

Finally, Klein asserts that Rand's views are very far from the mainstream.

In my view, Ezra Klein is being intellectually dishonest and disingenuous.

The question as framed by Rachel Maddow; the imagery and the backdrop were intended to create a wedge issue in a political contest that had little to do with race in order to promote a liberal political agenda.

If Rand is to be faulted it is because he allowed the hypothetical to press him into a corner. He should have answered unequivocally to the question in this way: 'Do I support public desegragation and non-discrimination? Yes. Do I support private businesses to make their own decisions? Yes. Do I reject racism? Yes.'

Many of the problems facing America today are a direct result of the institutionalization of victimhood codified in a great deal race-based legislation.

To pick a poignant and emotional example to make political points is dishonest.

I have a hypothetical question for Ezra Klein.

Background: A Jew in Germany murdered various members of his own family. The country had the death penalty.

Mr. Klein would you put a jew to death for his crime in Hitler's Germany in 1939? Sir, just yes or no."

The question is important because Mr. Klein you will be dealing with a great many rule of law issues in Congress.

Sir, just yes or no.

Edgardo Buscaglia made a series of recommendations for Mexico national policy and also for the El Paso-Juarez region through a public forum recently.

Buscaglia suggested Mexico and the local region need to:

1. Engage a true international cooperation to address drug trafficking;
2. Engage asset forfeiture as a strategy against the cartel players;
3. Engage a true prosecution of political corruption;
4. Engage a true social drug use prevention strategy; and
5. Third party or non-governmental organization formation to function as a para-governmental IRS or informant network.

While his analysis is on the mark, his prescription is woefully deficient.

The only organization with the breath to accomplish an alternative community organization is the Catholic Church. Warts and all, it remains the only institution that can credibly claim a social and public interest. But, it is no match to billions of dollars and gangs with no moral compass armed to the teeth.

Para-military or para-governmental agencies even with critical infrastructure provided by third parties e.g. UN or US, will not work. The implied loss of sovereignty would result in an explosion of violence.

To be sure, the outrage by cartel members would be self-serving but the issue set of violation of national sovereignty would be virulent ammunition against those that would support such a strategy.

Sadly the only solution is contained in my analysis of the situation issued elsewhere on this blog:

Close both the northern and southern Mexican border with a robust US military presence; declare war on law enforcement corruption on the US side of the border and apply a draconian asset forfeiture strategy to those caught distributing drugs on the US side.

There would be, of course, an additional effect on illegal immigration. It would be immediate and may result in collateral casualties.

Internally, Mexico's political leadership can decide whether they will rise to the challenge before them.

Some argue that Mexican President Felipe Calderon's call for open borders is intended to keep the flow of drugs from the south open in order to favor the strongest of the Mexican cartels e.g. the Sinaloa Cartel.

The cover for maintaing the flow of drugs is the illegal immigrant issue.

These naysayers assert that the fact is that Calderon couldn't care less about his citizens but cares deeply about their remittances. They are adamant that his primary goal is to ensure the on-going flow of drugs as his life depends on it.

The disappearance of Diego Cervantes de Ceballos, it is argued, is a direct result of his failure to protect a drug lord. Calderon is under the same threat. If he does not keep the northern border open to drugs, he is dead.

Whether there is merit to this line of argument and whether it bears closer scrutiny by analysts who are looking at these issues, is an open question.

Previously I have written about the viewpoints of officials on the US side of the border relative to border problems.

The meeting between Presidents Obama and Calderon alongside the call for marijuana legalization by El Paso City Rep. Beto O'Rourke et al. makes the perception of those south of the border very timely.

Mexicans believe military actions directed by the Mexican government to disrupt drug corridors, capture drug cartel leaders and otherwise disrupt relations between the cartels are having severe consequences on the social fabric of key northern cities including those on the US side of the border.

There is widespread insecurity and fear. This piece reflects the perspective of officials on the Mexican side.

Recent events suggest the central government has lost control of large sections of northern Mexico.

Local police forces are non-existent or highly compromised. The military has not been able to exert control over key major cities and complaints of rapes, theft and violence by the military against citizens has resulted in a partial pull-back in some areas.

According to border officials on the Mexican side, the problem of violence stems from the dissolution of the shadow, “La Oficina de Gobernabilidad” (L.O.G.), that operated under the federal regimes prior to Vicente Fox. This L.O.G. office was an informal tool by the government that managed and directed the flow of drugs through the country. The handful of existing cartels at that time had an explicit agreement to work within assigned spheres of influence.

The administration of Vicente Fox, in an effort to be responsive and be deemed cooperative with the US in order to gain favorable economic concessions, made a fateful decision to eliminate the L.O.G.

Some members of his administration took it upon themselves to become the de facto managers of the major corridors. However, the informal transfer of authority occurred without the institutional knowledge that had been accumulated by L.O.G. This included the names of key players and significant mid-level actors. As a result, there were significant gaps in the territorial allocation of spheres of influence.

Absent a directed accommodation among cartels in some sectors by the federal government, freelancers took up the challenge. Initially, these freelancers were not difficult to control and were referred to as “Encuerados” (naked ones) because they were lower class and cash poor. However, things changed dramatically: By the time of the assumption of President Felipe Calderon’s administration, “Encuerados” were increasingly known as the “Desgraciados” (Immoral heartless brigands). They were now cash rich and had acquired a taste for unrestrained social and personal power, “15 year olds with $400,000 and with no one to tell them they couldn’t do what they wanted.”

They have distinguished themselves with, particularly gruesome, acts of violence such as, cutting off heads, torture and rape. This grisly modus operandi includes innocents. The key symptom of the growing presence and power of the Desgraciados was the rape, torture and murder of women who worked in the maquiladoras.

These smaller gangs had six years to build their cash and infrastructural capacity. It is these gangs that are primarily responsible for the on-going carnage in the urban centers. They do not have a central authority and are widely dispersed. They also are not educated, relatively young (20s) and have no moral compass. This is a consequence of their entry into the drug trade in their formative years.

The collapse of the police forces occurred during the same time frame because they were the default managers of local drug movements. The closing of the L.O.G. resulted in local police captains making decisions at their discretion. The symptom of the problem became evident when municipal police began showing up dead.

Once top level officials no longer played the game or changed the focus of the game, “Encuerados” turned “Desgraciados” and their local law enforcement protectors became the perpetrators and targets of violence at the same time.

The most common complaint against the drug war as being conducted by President Calderon is the “Cortar Cabezas” (Off With Their Heads) strategy. This is provoking greater disaggregation of “Desgraciados” with links to the principal cartels, which as stated are the direct cause of the urban violence.

Another complaint is the intimidation of the judicial system. “The northern states are not dominated by the political and judicial class any longer but rather by agreements between the political groups and the dominant cartel operating in the state.”

The point was made this way, “Calderon is working off a map of reality that no longer exists. The new map is not made up of 10 major cartels but tens of dozens of minor gangs of Desgraciados. Some have links to the major cartels but many operate independently.”

Even when some leverage can be applied, key opportunities are lost. For example, the arrest of the wife of a cartel leader was a major event recently but fear of retribution made the event a lost opportunity. One opinion held, “Applying the IRS formula against the Mafia would have worked in that case. Any review of the financials of the family would have borne fruit but the prosecutors were intimidated. One prosecutor brought in from outside the state to take over one prosecution lasted less than 10 days on the job because of the pressures to rig outcomes favoring the cartels.” Another stated, “One federal judge goes to work in a baseball cap and a beat up truck to avoid being recognized.” One informant said, “Recent disappearances of high-powered attorneys are a consequence of their failure to fulfill their function as protectors of the cartel leaders.”

Despite reports of the emergence of one cartel in the fight for control of Juarez, this resolution is far from clear. The battle continues: One major group is lead by “La Linea” with some complicity with the current state governors (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas) and accommodations with the Gulf Cartel and one lead by “El Sinaloense” (Sonora, Baja California and part of Chihuahua) with their respective federal government and military allies on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Both have hired mercenary armies (e.g. Zetas, Barrio Aztecas) composed of professional criminal gangs with military-trained operatives to assert territorial dominance. In turn, they have empowered local neighborhood gangs for urban distribution, intimidation and control of local law enforcement.

Officials on the US Mexico border have expressed need for increased manpower on the border as well as infrastructure (roads, facilities, ports of entry) support. Mexican officials concur with that recommendation. However, they believe that nothing will change unless the border is effectively “closed to drug trafficking on the US side.”

One poignant difference between perceptions by US officials and their Mexican counterparts is the distribution of illegal exports into the U.S. “The industrial quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana are moving through Texas at Reynosa and the southern Texas border and including Cd. Juarez with major distribution hubs in El Paso and Dallas (not Arizona or New Mexico)…The fact is law enforcement at various levels is complicit with the importation and distribution of drugs into the US through Texas…For example, the Gulf Cartel is in business not as a distributor of drugs but as a border crossing agent and importer.”

As for exports of guns and cash from the US into Mexico, there has been little effort or willingness on the part of US government to stop the flow.

Rural areas in the US report “increasing” transportation of marijuana in the last few months ascribed to legalization of (medical) marijuana in California, New Mexico and Colorado. They note general lack of communication, coordination and information from federal law enforcement.

Mexican officials noted they believe wholesale legalization must be on the table in Mexican federal policy or, alternatively, the US must take responsibility for its policy that is promoting increasing demand for drugs.

As for increase in Mexican military action, myriad complaints from Mexican citizens regarding the increase in military personnel untrained to police urban centers is the immediate direct cause of the pull back announced recently by the Calderon administration.

Some local officials in Texas along with political action by US states and cities to legalize marijuana in California, New Mexico and Colorado has given rise to the perception by Mexican officials there is an effort to shift market share from Mexican to US sources of marijuana. They do not conclude legalization of marijuana in the US will impact the level of violence.

As for spillover, Mexican officials assert that the US cartels have issued orders to keep the US side peaceful in order to not create any disruption of their distribution networks. The people who have been killed that are US citizens or residents have been murdered because they brought attention to some aspect of the business or are involved. “Quiet neighborhoods are good business.”

The solutions to these problems are simple but there is no political will “on either the US or the Mexican side to resolve the problem.” The fact is strong action by either government in the right direction would ratchet down the tension, an essential ingredient of a new accommodation that will allow an independent police force to emerge.

There is a strong feeling the safety valve of entering the US must continue to be available. Many Mexicans “with financial capacity are moving into El Paso and other border areas on the US side.” Symptomatic of that is the thriving retail business that caters to Mexican tastes and sensibility. At the same time, there is great empathy with the challenges faced by the US. There needs to be a decriminalization of status “con candados” (with locks). “There are many people that are industrious, entrepreneurial and hard working families. The US needs to get rid of the scum but the majority are good people.”

Respondent Recommendations are as follows:

On Drug War
1. Interdict weapons, cash and drugs through inspection of south-bound
traffic at International Ports with Mexico:
2. Stop complicity with cartels of law enforcement in Texas;
3. Militarize border; OR
4. Legalize all drugs in Mexico and control the trade.

On Immigration
1. Decriminalize status of Mexican citizens in US “con candados” with
no right to public welfare and Deport anyone with a criminal record
from US;
2. Retool Immigration system (The back up in applications is “the
reason for illegal migration. The system is cumbersome and rigged
against the applicants.)

President Obama and Calderon do well to heed these recommendations.