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Cartels Advantage
US drone surveillance along the US Mexico border is high now
Elliot Spagat The Associated Press, Elliot Spagat is a San Diego Correspondent
that specializes in border related incidents. Elliot Spagat has been published by the
Washington Post, Time Magazine, Huffington Post and over 100 other sources. 1113-2014, "Drones replacing officers in Mexican border surveillance," Los Angeles
Daily News, http://www.dailynews.com/social-affairs/20141113/drones-replacingofficers-in-mexican-border-surveillance
The U.S. government now patrols nearly half the Mexican border
by drones alone in a largely unheralded shift to control desolate stretches where
there are no agents, camera towers, ground sensors or fences, and it plans to
expand the strategy to the Canadian border . It represents a significant departure from a decadesSIERRA VISTA, Ariz. >>
old approach that emphasizes boots on the ground and fences. Since 2000, the number of Border Patrol agents on
the 1,954-mile border more than doubled to surpass 18,000 and fencing multiplied nine times to 700 miles .
Under the new approach, Predator B aerial drones, used in the fight against insurgents in
Afghanistan, sweep remote mountains, canyons and rivers with a high-resolution video
camera and return within three days for another video in the same spot, two officials
with direct knowledge of the effort said on condition of anonymity because details have not been made public. The
two videos are then overlaid for analysts, who use sophisticated software to identify
tiny changes perhaps the tracks of a farmer or cows, perhaps those of
immigrants who entered the country illegally or perhaps a drug-laden Hummer , they
said. About 92 percent of drone missions have shown no change in terrain , while the
others raised enough questions to dispatch agents to determine if someone got
away, sometimes by helicopter because the area is so remote. The agents look for
any sign of human activity footprints, broken twigs, trash. About 4 percent of
missions have been false alarms, like tracks of livestock or farmers, and about 2 percent are
inconclusive. The remaining 2 percent offer evidence of illegal crossings from Mexico,
which typically results in ground sensors being planted for closer monitoring. The
government has operated about 10,000 drone flights under the strategy, known
internally as change detection, since it began in March 2013. The flights currently
cover about 900 miles, much of it in Texas, and are expected to expand to the Canadian border by
the end of 2015. The purpose is to assign agents where illegal activity is highest, said R. Gil Kerlikowske,
commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrols parent agency, which operates nine unmanned
aircraft across the country. You have finite resources, he said in an interview. If you can look at some very rugged
terrain (and) you can see theres not traffic, whether its tire tracks or clothing being abandoned or anything else,
you want to deploy your resources to where you have a greater risk, a greater threat. If the video shows the terrain
unchanged, Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher calls it proving the negative showing there isnt anything illegal
happening there and therefore no need for agents and fences. The strategy was launched without fanfare and is
being expanded as President Barack Obama prepares to issue an executive order by the end of this year to reduce
deportations and enhance border security. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House
Homeland Security Committee, applauded the approach while noting surveillance gaps still remain. We
can no
longer focus only on static defenses such as fences and fixed (camera) towers, he
said. Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who coauthored legislation last year
to add 20,000 Border Patrol agents and 350 miles of fencing to the southwest
border, said, If there are better ways of ensuring the border is secure, I am
certainly open to considering those options. Border missions fly out of Sierra Vista, home of the
U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, or Corpus Christi, Texas. They patrol at altitudes between 19,000 at
28,000 feet and from between 25 and 60 miles of the border. The first step is for Border Patrol sector chiefs to
them in 2006, saying there is potential to monitor innocent people under no suspicion. Lothar Eckardt, the agencys
executive director of national air security operations, said law-abiding people shouldnt worry and that cameras are
unable to capture details like license plate numbers and faces on the ground. He looked on one September morning
as a drone taxied down a runway in Sierra Vista, lifted off with a muffled buzz and disappeared over a rocky
mountain range into a blue Arizona sky. About a dozen computer screens line the wall of their trailer, showing the
Before
border enforcement tightened in the early 1990s, migrants typically paid
about $725 (2014 dollars). Currently, unauthorized migrants from Central
America are paying around $7500. The economics of industrial organization can
shed some light on why smugglers have shifted from mom and pop operations to large,
organized, and violent criminal cartels who now seek children clients instead of adults .
Mom and pop smugglers ran small and unsophisticated operations to smuggle immigrants over the border . As border patrol
cracked down on them and put many out of business, more intensive smuggling
operations that required more capital, planning, and violence to overcome enforcement
were needed to satisfy the demand. As a result of the shrinking mom and pop smuggling
operations, serious criminal organizations and drug gangs have become specialized in
smuggling migrants because of the higher profits. The shift from mom and pop
smugglers to sophisticated criminal smugglers that focus on smuggling those with an
inelastic demand for smuggling is the result of larger and more effective border
enforcement.
(David Pedigo, M.A. candidate at top-ranked university with experience in economic and financial
modeling and a professional background in international affairs and journalism, The Drug War and State Failure in
Mexico,
http://research.monm.edu/mjur/files/2012/2012-7.pdf)
Few topics are more relevant to the national security of the United States today
than the crisis in Mexico, which threatens to create a failed state on the southern
border. In 2009, noted international relations scholar John Mearsheimer listed the ongoing drug war in Mexico as
the number one issue that had been overlooked by President Obama, saying that , There is the very real
possibility that Mexico will implode on Obama's watch and become a failed state,
which would surely cause serious problems north of the Rio Grande. 1 This claim has
been echoed by Steven David, another eminent scholar in the field of international relations, who states in his book,
Catastrophic Consequences, that, there is no question that if violent instability engulfs Mexico, American vital
of the
most widely accepted indicators of state failure is what Max Weber referred to as
the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a states territory. In
other words, failed states emerge when the ultimate authority to provide security and
enforce the rule of law comes from a power other than the state.3 By this
qualification, Mexico certainly is not a failed state today, but it does exhibit many
characteristics of a captured state, wherein the state itself is manipulated by
other actors -- in this case drug cartels. There are also some regions throughout
Mexicos territory where drug cartels have more influence over the rule of law than
the state, and can therefore be considered failed provinces or failed cities. In
these regions, cartels freely murder mayors, police officers, and journalists that
challenge their authority, sometimes within feet of police posts. Not only is the Mexican
state unable to provide security for its population, but cartels have increasingly influenced
government policy through intimidating, killing, or buying off state actors. As both
Mearsheimer and David suggest, state failure in Mexico would have devastating
effects for the United States. Some of the violence and lawlessness of the drug war
in Mexico have already begun to leak across the border. In 2005, the governors of
Arizona and New Mexico declared their border regions with Mexico to be a disaster
area on the grounds that they were devastated by human smuggling, drug smuggling,
interests would be threatened.2 112 While no single definition of a failed state currently exists, one
kidnapping, murder, and destruction of property.4 There have also been recent concerns over southern Arizona
Manwaring 5 (Max G., Retired U.S. Army colonel and an Adjunct Professor of International Politics at
Dickinson College, venezuelas hugo chvez, bolivarian socialism, and asymmetric warfare, October 2005, pg.
PUB628.pdf)
President Chvez also understands that the process leading to state failure is the most dangerous long-term security
challenge facing the global community today. The argument in general is that failing and failed state status is the
breeding ground for instability, criminality, insurgency, regional conflict, and terrorism. These conditions breed
massive humanitarian disasters and major refugee flows. They can host evil networks of all kinds, whether they involve
criminal business enterprise, narco-trafficking, or some form of ideological crusade such as Bolivarianismo. More
specifically, these conditions spawn all kinds of things people in general do not like such as murder, kidnapping, corruption,
intimidation, and destruction of infrastructure. These means of coercion and persuasion can spawn further
human rights violations, torture, poverty, starvation, disease, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, trafficking in
women and body parts, trafficking and proliferation of conventional weapons systems and WMD, genocide, ethnic
cleansing, warlordism, and criminal anarchy. At the same time, these actions are usually unconfined and spill over
into regional syndromes of poverty, destabilization, and conflict.62 Perus Sendero Luminoso calls violent and
destructive activities that facilitate the processes of state failure armed propaganda. Drug cartels operating throughout the Andean
Ridge of South America and elsewhere call these activities business incentives. Chvez considers these actions to be
steps that must be taken to bring about the political conditions necessary to establish Latin American socialism
for the 21st century.63 Thus, in addition to helping to provide wider latitude to further their tactical and operational objectives,
state and nonstate actors strategic efforts are aimed at progressively lessening a targeted regimes credibility and capability in
terms of its ability and willingness to govern and develop its national territory and society. Chvezs intent is to focus his
primary attack politically and psychologically on selected Latin American governments ability and right to
govern. In that context, he understands that popular perceptions of corruption, disenfranchisement, poverty, and lack of upward
mobility limit the right and the ability of a given regime to conduct the business of the state. Until a given populace generally
perceives that its government is dealing with these and other basic issues of political, economic, and social injustice fairly and
effectively, instability and the threat of subverting or destroying such a government are real.64 But failing and failed
states simply do not go away. Virtually anyone can take advantage of such an unstable situation. The tendency is that the best
motivated and best armed organization on the scene will control that instability. As a consequence, failing and failed states
become dysfunctional states, rogue states, criminal states, narco-states , or new peoples democracies. In connection
with the creation of new peoples democracies, one can rest assured that Chvez and his Bolivarian populist allies will be available
to provide money, arms, and leadership at any given opportunity. And, of course, the longer dysfunctional, rogue, criminal,
and narco-states and peoples democracies persist, the more they and theirassociated problems endanger
global security, peace, and prosperity.65
RELATIONS ADVANTAGE
Border surveillance has been increased in the squo, and
without major changes it will be increasing for decades to
come
Bosque 15 (Melissa del Bosque, March 2nd, 2015, Death on Sevenmile Road,
Texas Observer, http://www.texasobserver.org/human-cost-border-security-build-up/,
AZ)
At the height of the Central American exodus in July, DPS launched another surge
called Operation Strong Safety. Armored gunboats patrolled the Rio Grande with
DPS troopers, rangers and game wardens dressed in body armor and tactical gear.
Texas National Guard soldiers were also deployed, despite the fact that the
thousands of migrants, mostly women and children, were making a point of
presenting themselves to authorities to ask for asylum. Operation Strong Safety is
slated to continue into August 2015 at a cost of more than $2 million a week .
Recently, newly elected Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have
indicated they would like to make the surge permanent. By 2016, the state will have
spent more than $1 billion in state and federal money on border security over the
last decade. And its poised to spend much more in the decade to come.
and Mexico quintupled in the last 20 years. Some 6 million U.S. jobs depend on
trade with Mexico. That includes companies like Dell and Ford as well as smaller
businesses that make medical devices or auto parts.
economy, is getting a lot less attention. Focusing politically on the rest of the
border is easier than facing the challenges of running effective ports of entry, said
Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, a
Washington-based group critical of increased immigration. While the land ports
probably do need more investment in infrastructure, there also should be much
more stringent security, including entry and exit checks to catch those who
overstay legal visits, he said. It seems to some extent we put too much emphasis
on the ease of movement across the border, Camarota said. The border is not
simply an obstacle to be overcome by businesses and travelers. It is the part where
our country begins, and it is vitally important for security and immigration control.
Modernizing Ports Modernizing land ports of entry, which average more than 40
years old and were built before the increased security requirements implemented
after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, would cost $6 billion according to a
2011 Customs and Border Protection report. About half of that cost would be for the
southern border, according to the Bloomberg Government analysis. The Senate bill
includes funding for 3,500 additional Customs officers and earmarks $6.5 billion for
border security. With the bills metrics tied to security elsewhere on the
border, though, thats where most of the money will probably go, Hummer
said. Achieving the security metrics in the Gang of Eight bill will likely divert
funds away from land ports of entry, Hummer said.
As Mexicos security crisis begins to recede, the two 3 A New Agenda with
Mexico countries will also have to do far more to strengthen the
governments of Central America, which now face a rising tide of violence as
organized crime groups move southward. Mexico is also a U.S. ally in
deterring terrorist threats and promoting robust democracy in the
Western Hemisphere, and there will be numerous opportunities to
strengthen the already active collaboration as growing economic
opportunities reshape the regions political and social landscape.
This is one of the motivations which led Canada to become involved in efforts at regional conflict resolution, such as
Contadora, as will be discussed in the next chapter.
the domestic daily death toll made possible by the gun industry, but build up a massively funded Borderland
security-surveillance industry? Indeed, Eagle Eye Expositions (which is also offering a similar Canadian border
conference later this year - and even a "Global Summit of Borders" in May) has found itself a matchmaker for forces
bent on turning America's southern border into a zone of fear. All signs are that, whatever temporary budget battles
in DC, the Borderland security industry will keep growing like a hedge fund manager's Cayman Islands bank
account. And Eagle Eye Expositions will draw a hefty profit from serving as the go-to (but not the only) convention
for players in this growth business dependent upon the largesse of the government and its affiliated agencies.
(Jack Cloherty, ABC Justice Dept.,Homeland Security producer, Pierre Thomas, Senior Justice
Correspondent for ABC News, 2/1/11, Congress: Border With Canada the Weak Link In Terror Security, ABC News,
http://abcnews.go.com/US/northern-border-weak-link-terror-security/story?id=12812214)
A congressional study out today says only 32 of the 4,000 miles of border with
Canada are fully secured by the U.S. Border Patrol, providing a potential pathway for
terrorists to enter this country. The General Accounting Office study was released this morning by
Senators Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. "The northern border provides easy
passage for extremists, terrorists and criminals who clearly mean to harm America,"
Lieberman said. He added while most of the nation's concern has been focused on
threats from our border with Mexico, he believes lax security on the northern border
is potentially more dangerous. "To me this report is absolutely alarming. The risk of
terrorist activity across the northern border is actually higher than the terror threat
on our southern border." Lieberman said he based that judgment on several factors: there are
more identified Islamic extremist groups in Canada than in Mexico; the northern border
has only "a fraction of the security" that is in force on the southern border; and the northern border is dotted with
large population centers, which makes it harder to detect illegal activity.