Hi Gang:
I am providing you with a news report that appears in today’s edition of the New York Daily News that should serve as a wakeup call or, perhaps, provide a strong dose of reality to those who believe that anyone who believes our nation’s borders need to be secured and our nation’s immigration laws need to be effectively enforced from within the United States is simply being xenophobic or racist.
Consider the headline form the disturbing news report I have provided you today:
Exclusive
Feds finding it harder and harder to combat escalating presence of Mexican drug cartels in New York
It is the sort of headline that just a few years ago would not have ended by saying New York but perhaps, Phoenix, Arizona or El Paso, Texas!
It is ironic that when I listen to the advocates for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” and who oppose the enforcement of immigration laws in New York, or Maryland or other east coast cities that they often like to chant that “New York is not Arizona!”
They need to read that headline and the news report below!
I have often made the point that any state that has a seaport or an international airport is a border state. I have also noted on ever so many occasions that when you travel to the border regions of the United States, you do not see tents along those border regions. The illegal aliens and the smugglers are not simply content to set foot on American soil. grab some rocks and plant their nation’s flag on the American side of the border and then quickly head back home the way that the Apollo astronauts journeyed to the moon to scoop up some rocks, lunar soil, set up some scientific instruments and then head back to earth.
The illegal aliens who run our nation’s borders, stow away on vessels, enter the United States through ports of entry and then violate the terms of their admission are here for the “long haul.”
The criminals and undoubtedly, the terrorists among them, who run our borders are here to ply their respective trades.
The drug trade undermines our nation’s security and the safety of our communities. Most crime, especially violent crime is directly or indirectly related to the drug trade. The cartels, which according to Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of DHS, the agency I have come to refer to as the Department of Homeland Surrender, has openly made the point repeatedly that more than 230 American cities from coast to coast and border to border have become infested by members of the Mexican drug cartels. Clearly New York is one of the cities and it is, as you must realize nearly as far away from the Mexican border as almost any other major city in the United States.
The cartels are about money and profit. In order to make certain that they retain control over their profits, the cartels use an age old strategy of violence and intimidation that could almost make the mobsters of the past appear to be gentlemen! To the cartels the only rule is that there are no rules! The Italian mob almost never killed the family members of those who crossed them. They tended to insulate the person they decided to kill from his family to spare them the horror of witnessing the killing of a loved one. Family members were almost never killed. Law enforcement officers were almost always off limits.
The Mexican cartels tend to like to kill family members of those who cross them. Their tactics appear to have been lifted from the play-books of terrorist organizations than from other criminal organizations.
The violence visited on the residents of towns in Mexico should serve notice on our too complacent politicians that left unchecked, the bloodbath that has become a daily occurrence in Mexico could begin playing out across our nation.
The Mexican cartel and other international narcotics trafficking organizations tend to bring in their own countrymen to run the drug trade in our country. This is done for a number of reasons. First of all, they want people they know that they can trust to be in charge. They know that they can trust the people who run the day to day operations in the United States because they may have a familial relationship with them. Whether or not they are blood relatives, blood may also figure into the relationship because if any of those who come to the United States and fail to be scrupulously honest with their cartel bosses back in Mexico or another country because it is easy for their crime bosses to take retribution on family members who live back in their home country.
The involvement of gangs in the drug trade can also serve as a recruiting agency for the cartels, involving young school children in the use of narcotics, destroying young lives here in the United States and generating still more business for the drug cartels.
Additionally, the same businesses that are essential for illegal aliens who need false identity documents or want to send money back home or stay in communication with their family members back home, are at least as essential to criminal and terrorist organizations. This is the way it works for all transnational criminal organizations and has nothing to do with ethnicity.
The false arguments that those who are concerned about the immigration crisis are bigots do not hold up to reason or scrutiny. In fact, it is more often than not the members of the immigrant communities who are most likely to fall victim to all transnational gangs and criminal organizations from the four corners of the earth. it is just that the Mexican cartels are present in our country in far greater numbers as a result of geography. Mexico is immediately adjacent to the United States and hence their criminals have the easiest access to our country.
Crime and narcotics are cancers that have metastasized throughout our country and the token efforts being made to attack this pernicious threat to the security of our nation and the lives of our citizens must be ramped up and taken seriously. I know that the field agents at ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), DEA, the FBI and other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies want to succeed in their missions. For approximately one half of my career I worked almost exclusively on investigations that involved narcotics trafficking and related crimes that included murder, money laundering, gun running and even terrorism. I know from first hand experience just how dedicated those field agents and police officers are!
The problem is that as the old Yiddish expression so succinctly states, “When a fish goes bad, it smells from the head!”
The smugglers who smuggle narcotics into our country also smuggle aliens into our country. Our nation’s porous borders that offer little more than a speed bump to the smugglers does not prevent the flow of drugs or illegal aliens and the criminals and terrorists among them to enter our country and set up shop in cities across our vast nation.
ICE has all of 6,000 special agents to enforce the immigration laws as well as the customs laws for our entire country! The NYPD has 35,000 police officers just for the City of New York and there are only about 3,000 ICE agents enforcing the immigration laws for our entire country!
Aliens who can get past the Border Patrol or manage to get admitted through a port of entry and then violate the terms of their admission into our country is probably more likely to buy a winning lottery ticket than get arrested and deported by ICE!
Napolitano, Schumer, Pelosi, Reid, McCain and all of the other “usual suspects” love to get in front of the cameras and tell us how the border has never been more secure! If the borders are so secure, how do the drugs get into our country?
If the borders are so secure, how do the illegal aliens enter the United States?
If the borders are so secure, why is it that there are more and more alien members of the drug cartels now operating in New York City and other cities clear across our nation?
The issue is not simply building a fence on the border- although a solid barrier would be helpful. As I have noted on previous occasions, a secure fence along our borders would be an asset but I compare such a fence with the wing of an airplane. Without the wing, the airplane will not fly. However, a wing by itself will go nowhere! The wing of an airplane is simply one of many vital components.
A fence on our borders, especially our southern border should be thought of as simply being one of many needed components of what should be thought of as a coherent immigration system. However, today, the immigration system is a system in name only!
If a chain is as strong as its weakest link, where the immigration system is concerned, all we have are weak links and all but nonexistent links!
Finally, as I have noted in so many venues on so many occasions, those who, in one way or another, profit from our open borders will tell you that the enforcement of the immigration laws would do great harm to community policing. If anyone tells you that, kindly recommend that they see a surgeon and arrange for rhinoplasty (nose-job) because they are lying and their noses must be growing!
On May 18, 2004 I was called by the then Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, Sheila Jackson Lee, and asked to testify before a hearing that was entitled:
“PUSHING THE BORDER OUT ON ALIEN SMUGGLING: NEW TOOLS AND INTELLIGENCE INITIATIVES”
Here is a link to the transcript of that hearing, in its entirety:
As an INS Special Agent, one of my responsibilities at the Unified Intelligence Division of the DEA and then when I was promoted to the position of Senior Special Agent with the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force where I spent the final ten years of my 30 year career with the INS was to help other law enforcement agencies recruit informants and cooperators! There are a variety of visas and benefits that can be provided to illegal aliens who come forward and cooperate with law enforcement authorities. There are also specific criminal charges that can be brought to bear against aliens who become involved in drug trafficking and other crimes as well as terrorism that are a part of our nation’s immigration laws or that require that the immigration component of the law violation be taken into account. Often terrorists are not charged with terrorism but with committing visa fraud.
In illegal alien in possession of a firearm faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. An alien who is deported subsequent to being convicted of a felony faces a maximum of 20 years in jail for re-entry after removal (deportation).
Immigration status and other related factors help to conclusively and persuasively establish “risk of flight” at a bail hearing.
Even illegal aliens who are victims of crime can avail themselves of visas that would enable them to remain in the United States.
When you consider the issues I raised above, how could anyone who is honest make the argument that the enforcement of the immigration laws would hurt “community policing?”
Our nation is bleeding red and green! People are dying and it is costing our nation megabucks every year in terms of money that is being drained out of our country by the drug trade and other transnational criminal organizations. The drug trade is not only causing lives to be lost but lives to be destroyed. Once hooked, drug addicts spend the rest of their lives trying to climb out of a hole so deep that most don’t make it!
If a nation cannot provide for the safety and security of its citizens, then nothing else that the nation does or aspires to do matters!
The effective enforcement and administration of our nation’s immigration laws are, arguably, among the most important of all missions that are supposed to be carried out by our federal government.
Nothing less than the security of our nation and safety of our citizens hang in the balance!
A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!
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our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!
We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm’s way in defense of this nation and our citizens.
My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.
The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.
If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same. We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”
The practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.
The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!
The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians. I implore you to resolve this year to get involved!
I believe our nation’s is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world. However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda!
If this situation concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
-michael cutler-
Please check out my website:
Exclusive
Meneghini/AP
Federal officers escort accused drug trafficker and two other alleged drug cartel members in Mexico City in November.
New York feds have more than doubled the time spent breaking up the growing network between local gangs and Mexican drug cartels.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents went from spending 13,472 hours in 2009 to more than 30,000 hours last year looking into street criminals-turned-lackeys of Mexican drug rings, officials said.
ICE also added three agents in the past few years to fight the drug gangs’ escalating presence.
The shift in manpower and time was based on intelligence showing local gangs’ illicit activities had evolved into more sophisticated and businesslike enterprises.
ICE agents also have seen a rise in dirty money and weapons confiscated in the New York area.
Last year, the feds seized more than $35 million and 57 firearms, a record number in New York, according to ICE figures.
“We spent these hours investigating violent, transnational street gang members who are now working closely with sophisticated drug-trafficking organizations,” said James Hayes, special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations in New York.
“We see more and more a correlation between Mexican drug organizations and gangs here in New York,” Hayes added.
“New York is a big market for drugs. Mexican cartels want to increase their presence here.”
For decades, New York was a Colombian drug playground. But when federal agents caught on to their Caribbean corridor, Colombian drug cartels had to rethink smuggling routes and enlisted their Mexican counterparts, who had access to porous border towns, officials said.
Mexican kingpins established roots in the city by recruiting local gangs – like MS 13 and the Latin Kings – with the promise of hefty paydays, feds say.
“Mexican cartels went from being relatively small players to playing a much larger role in the transportation of drugs into the country,” said Michael Sanders of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Some former drug gang members said the money pushes many idle youth into working for gangs hired by Mexican cartels.
“These kids have no future. The promise of money seems like a good way out, and next thing you know you’re involved in a dangerous drug world,” said Frank Hernandez, 53, of the Bronx, who spent several years in prison for selling drugs.
Paco, a former gang member who won’t use his real name for fear of rival drug gangs, said New York’s appetite for drugs kept him hooked.
“It’s hard to stay clean and away from the gangs and the easy money,” Paco said.
“The drugs come from Mexico, and we sell them here. It never ends.”
esandoval@nydailynews.com
