THE SCOURGE OF DRUG TRAFFICKING

Most illicit drugs, and nearly all of the heroin, that enters the United States comes in
over, under, and through the 1,933-mile border with Mexico. As a result, according to
the DEA, Mexican traffickers remain the greatest criminal drug threat to our country.
More than that, the trafficking and abuse that illicit drugs pose are a monumental
danger to our citizens and a significant challenge for our law enforcement agencies and
health care systems, this according to the DEAs Acting Administrator, Chuck
Rosenberg. The exact amounts of illicit drugs entering the U.S. through the southern
border are unknown but estimates are they represent from $19-$29 billion a year in
sales.

IS THERE AN ANSWER?
The simple solution it would seem would be to build a wall on the border to keep the
smugglers and drug runners out. Such is the plan being proposed by one presidential
candidate.
But would it work?

Would a wall alone deliver on its promoters promises of security? Most heroin entering
the US, according to the DEA, slips in through legal border crossings. These are the
sections of the border that are already walled off. Rather than driving in drugs through
unguarded segments of the southern border, smugglers overwhelmingly favor crossing
the border through its most heavily secured sections. Using various smuggling methods,
they conceal their contraband in a number clever ways: loaded into secret
compartments in vehicles, inside cargo, car tires and gas tanks, strapped onto (and
sometimes within) peoples bodies, and other creative and disturbing ways.
Traffickers have also used airports. Baggage handlers, flight attendants, TSA agents,
security officers in addition to passengers have all been caught attempting to smuggle
drugs into the US. Drug cartels have used fleets of hundreds of aircraft to move
shipments of drugs over the border as well as using ultralights and drones.
For those traffickers who would choose to breach the wall as it exists, they have already
revealed a variety of imaginative methods: scaling the wall physically, using jacks to wall
lift sections, cutting the wall with special tools, using hydraulic ramps to boosting cars
over the wall, throwing drugs over the wall, catapulting and shooting them over with
cannons, and others. Sections of the wall have also been toppled by storm runoff.

AND TUNNELS
Then there are the tunnels: An increasing number of subterranean tunnels have been
discovered along the border by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). According to
Time Magazine, since 2001, more than 100 tunnels have been found along the border,
most in Arizona with a smaller number in California in California alone 13 have been
found since 2006. Some are quite sophisticated, designed by engineers with extensive
tunnel-construction experience. They have reinforced walls and ceilings, lighting
systems, concrete floors, ventilation, electricity, and water drainage systems. And then
there was the one with a railway system.

THE WALL WE ALREADY HAVE

Presently, the existing wall that was built under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 covers
700 miles of the almost 2,000 mile border. That leaves more hole than fence. While it
employed 7,000 construction workers, 350 engineers and 19 construction companies, it
also cost $3.7 billion.
Every time a hole is broken into the border wall, it costs $1,300 to repair. According to a
GAO report, the estimated cost of maintaining the 661-mile double-layered fence over
the next 20 years is $6.5 billion. In his film The Fence (La Barda), documentarian Rory
Kennedy makes the claim that maintenance costs of the fence we already have will be
$49 billion over the next 25 years.

As far as the walls effectiveness is concerned, the jury on that is still out. Border agents
believe the wall is a tool that helps offer protection but the GAO and U.S. Customs and
Border Protection cannot accurately determine the walls benefits to border security. One
of the consequences of the intensification of border security has been an increase in the
number of deaths.

WHY SO MANY DIE

The original 700 miles were chosen with the strategy of sealing off the easy-to-cross
urban areas near El Paso, Tijuana, and Nogales by building walls, increasing Border
Patrol presence, and adding more sensors and technology. More recently, patrolling by
drones has been added to the campaign. This left open large open swaths of remote
and hazardous back country. In fencing off these more popular urban accesses, border
crossers were forced into desert and mountain terrain in other areas, including Arizona
and Texas. The result has been an increase in deaths, a fact agreed upon by everyone
from policy makers to humanitarians.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, from 2000 to 2014 more than 6,000 people have
died trying to migrate through the southern border. This number may be a low estimate
as this it is based only on the number of bodies found.

HOW MUCH A NEW BORDER WALL WILL COST

One advantage of building the wall under the Secure Fence Act was that it addressed
some of the easier and less costly areas to fence. Not all of its 700 miles is doublelayered and there has been some controversy whether it was constructed properly. As
almost inevitably happens with such projects, the final costs were greater than what
were expected at the beginning. The remaining areas to be built could involve a
substantially greater degree of difficulty. It has been argued, including by former
presidential candidate Jeb Bush, that the remaining areas left to build are in terrain that
makes construction impossible.
According to the GAO, the cost of building one mile of border fencing is between $2.8
million and $3.9 million, figures that may be low when figuring wall building costs in the
future. Those costs could be $16 million per mile or more. The proposed wall has been
described as low as 25 feet and as high as 55 feet. This makes estimating wildly
variable.
Wall advocates have proposed that total costs would be in the $10-$12 billion range.
Disputing this, the Washington Post fact checker estimated the cost would be more like
$25 billion. Maintenance of the wall could cost as much as $750 million a year. At
present, the border patrol has an operating budget of $1.4 billion.

WHAT ABOUT THE NORTH?

Then theres Canada. Excluding the border with Alaska, the border between Canada
and the contiguous U.S. is 4,000 miles long, from Atlantic to Pacific. This is twice as
long as our border with Mexico. Canada supplies large quantities of contraband drugs to
the U.S. including marijuana and ecstasy. These drugs enter the country by helicopter,
boat and float plane, in cattle trucks, hikers backpacks, and by snowmobile. Despite its
double area of frontier, the Canadian border is patrolled by 1,550 agents (up from 500 in
2002) compared to the Mexican borders 16,900 agents. From 2004 to 2006 the
seizures of ecstasy being smuggled into U.S. from Canada have quadrupled. Seizures
of cocaine have tripled. In a 2009 report from The National Drug Intelligence Center, it
was estimated that Canada-based drug gangs generated between $33 billion and $56
billion annually from drug sales in the U.S.

WILL IT STOP?
A wall may make drug trafficking more inconvenient. Its effect may be an increase in the
street price of drugs but as long as there is a market, as history has shown, drugs will
be available. As of 2010, US residents spent more than $100 billion on illegal drugs.
Americas hunger for drugs appears to be as robust as ever.

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