(This column is based on a report submitted to the National Association of Chiefs of Police by the US Department of Homeland Security.)
According to DHS officials, ICE has established aggressive intelligence and investigative operations at the nation’s borders, ports of entries, and between the ports and the nation’s interior. However, some security experts are concerned with the current Administration's failure to address border problems. In fact, the new Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is concentrating on the US-Canadian border.
The southern border of the US is a region particularly vulnerable to cross-border criminal organizations and enterprises and the violence associated with them. In recent years, ICE has witnessed an unprecedented surge in brutality by drug and human smuggling and trafficking organizations along the Southwest border. Below are a few of the initiatives that ICE has launched to combat the criminal organizations behind this activity.
BEST TASK FORCE / BORDER DRUG VIOLENCE
Drug-related violence along the Texas-Mexico border, particularly in the Nuevo Laredo/ Laredo area has drastically increased over the past year. This violence is caused by intense competition between the remnants of the Gulf Cartel and the so-called “Federation.” The Gulf Cartel continues to be supervised by Osiel Cardenas Guillen despite his arrest in 2003. Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman Loera and Arturo Beltran Leyva are members of the Federation which is attempting to take control of this important smuggling corridor from the Gulf Cartel
In response, ICE first partnered with other federal, state, and local law enforcement officials in Laredo, Texas, to create a multi-agency operation called Operation Black Jack in July 2005. Operation Black Jack has since evolved into the DHS’s Border Enforcement and Security Task Force, known as BEST.
The BEST task force incorporates personnel from ICE, Customs and Border Protection including the Border Patrol, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, US Marshals Service, US Attorney’s Office, and key state and local law enforcement agencies. The BEST task force concept incorporates personnel from existing intelligence groups -- who are involved in both collection and analysis -- to help identify and disseminate information relating to violent smuggling organizations. The BEST task force has been a highly successful tool to combat violence in the Laredo area.
This coordinated approach has led to significant enforcement results, including the January / February 2006 seizures in Laredo of dynamite, numerous live grenades, as well as materials to make roughly 33 Improvised Explosive Devices. Since its inception, BEST made 31 arrests and the seizure of 41 assault rifles, 12 handguns, 5 silencers, a large quantity of weapons components, kits, and ammunition, as well as roughly 700 pounds of marijuana, 336 pounds of cocaine and roughly $1.14 million.
Nationwide, ICE investigations into drug trafficking activity last year resulted in the seizure of more than 300,000 pounds of cocaine, 2.2 million pounds of marijuana, nearly 4,000 pounds of heroin, 2,200 pounds of methamphetamine, and hundreds of thousands of pounds of other smuggled drugs.
HUMAN SMUGGLING / TRAFFICKING INVESTIGATIONS
The violence experienced on the Southwest border is not only caused by drug trafficking organizations, but also human smuggling and human trafficking rings. These international organizations, which earn hundreds of millions of dollars annually through smuggling and exploitation of illegal immigrants, are becoming increasingly ruthless. In case after case, ICE agents have seen aliens being smuggled in squalid conditions without food, water, or even air. Moreover, they are frequently subjected to violence, forced labor and sexual exploitation upon arrival at their U.S. destination.
Since the creation of ICE in March 2003, ICE investigations into human smuggling and trafficking organizations had resulted in more than 5,400 criminal arrests, 2,800 criminal indictments, and 2,300 criminal convictions. The amount of assets seized by ICE from human smugglers and human trafficking organizations has increased from almost none before 2003 to nearly $27 million in 2005.
In one case that culminated in January 2006, ICE agents in El Paso, Texas, arrested the leaders of two large-scale criminal organizations on charges of smuggling more than 600 aliens across the Southwest border. The organizations allegedly generated more than $1.6 million in smuggling fees. Depending on their nationality, aliens were charged between $1,500 and $6,000 apiece. During the investigation, ICE agents encountered large numbers of smuggled aliens crammed into trailers for non-stop trips with no food and limited water.
In another recent ICE case, two individuals were convicted on February 2, 2006, in Tucson, Arizona on 15 counts each of smuggling aliens. Both face potential life sentences based on enhancements for causing death and bodily injury during their smuggling venture. These smugglers were transporting aliens in a stolen truck on an Arizona Interstate in October 2004 and, during a high-speed pursuit, caused an accident that involved 10 vehicles. The accident resulted in death of five 5 people, including an elderly couple. In addition, 38 people were injured, including 21 people with "level one" traumas.
SOUTHWEST BORDER TUNNEL ACTIVITY
In some cases, increased actions by law enforcement agencies along the border are driving smuggling organizations underground. In January 2006, ICE worked with its Mexican counterparts, as well as with the DEA and CBP in the United States, to discover a sophisticated tunnel beneath the border between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. Mexican authorities later executed a search warrant at a location in Mexico and seized 4,351 pounds of marijuana.
Further investigation revealed that the tunnel was the longest ever discovered under the Southwest border, extending nearly half a mile from Mexico into the United States. Descending to a depth of 81 feet below ground, the tunnel was equipped with lighting, ventilation and cement flooring. An exit was found inside a warehouse in Otay Mesa, California. Approximately 300 additional pounds of marijuana were seized at this location. Since 9/11, federal authorities have discovered more than 20 cross-border tunnels along the U.S. - Mexico border in California and Arizona.
TARGETING THE FINANCES OF CROSS-BORDER CRIMINAL ENTERPRISES
The smuggling of bulk currency out of the United States, and especially across the Southwest border, has become one of the preferred methods of moving illegally obtained money out of the country. In 2001, Congress criminalized the act of bulk cash smuggling under a section of the Patriot Act, which makes it a crime to conceal and smuggle more than $10,000 in currency and monetary instruments into or out of the United States with the intent to evade U.S. currency-reporting requirements. ICE agents have used this section of the Patriot Act to make more than 330 arrests. In addition, ICE and CBP have cumulatively seized more than $160 million of the funds involved in these bulk cash smuggling violations.
ICE’s efforts against bulk cash smuggling do not end at U.S. borders. In August 2005, ICE partnered with CBP and the State Department to initiate a training program with Mexican authorities on ways to combat cash smuggling. As a result of this joint financial initiative, Mexican authorities have seized more than $18 million in cash and $5 million in negotiable instruments that were involved in violations of Mexican currency-reporting requirements.
Aside from bulk cash smuggling, ICE works to investigate other methods that criminals use to move their illicit funds out of the United States, such as the use of unlicensed money services businesses. These businesses operate outside the traditional banking system and have been long recognized by law enforcement as vulnerable to abuse.
The enhancements enacted in the Patriot Act, provide law enforcement with increased authority to investigate unlicensed money remitters. Since the passage of the Patriot Act, ICE investigations of unlicensed money services businesses have resulted in more than 171 arrests and the seizure of $25 million, but much, much more needs to be done.
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he's the new editor for the House Conservatives Fund's weblog. Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.
He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com and PHXnews.com. He's also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He's appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri's own website is located at http://jimkouri.us
Comments
If America can't get along with other countries around the world, why should we expect it to get along with its neighbors? This is just chickens coming home to roost for the US and its plain dumb "war on drugs". America seems to think that war is the answer to everything including essentially social/medicals problems such as drug abuse. All drug prohibition does(as we learned 80 years ago during prohibition) was corrupt governments. So why are we surprised that Mexico's government is corrupted beyond all hope to the point it cannot even protect its own citizens? The US isn't far behind with its own growing corruption regardless of whether Mexico is a threat or not. The real threat is the truly dumb continuance of drug prohibition despite obvious and abundant evidence that it is the biggest threat to our security by rotting out government and society out from the INSIDE.
Bob, you don't know what you are talking about.
Mexico has been a corrupt nation since
before your 1700 ancestors were alive.
Allowing un-screened illegal immigration from Latin America is what is destroying our neighborhoods.
If these people are here for a better life then why are they destroying our cities?
Regarding drugs,
former drug addicts unanimously oppose
legalizing drugs for personal use.
Why? Because they are experts on the subject.
The Director of the CIA is on target.
Mexico has to fix itself but never will.
Everything about Mexico is based on money not morals.
Kind of like how our government and their relationship with Corporations has become.
The U.S. is going downhill due to this
immoral marriage.
How many innocent Americans must die at the hands of drunk illegal alien driver?How many jobs lost to illegal aliens? How much domestic violence and child abuse must the newspapers print? How many illegals will sneak across our borders disregarding our laws before Washington decides to protect the American people, the American worker and the American economy?
"Mexican nationals violence a threat to U.S. citizens", says CIA director.
Yes, but alas, it will all fall on dead Democratic ears. The flow of illegal foreign nationals must continue, despite its effect on Americans jobs, taxes, safety, or social welfare systems which the Democrats have allowed to be bankrupted by illegal immigration in State after State. Are there voters, who in general, are more stupid than Americans anywhere in the world???
Bobby I don't think it is stupidity
with the voters. I believe it is the clever propaganda put out by the Corporate
media and that includes government
entities.
False Propaganda is a very useful tool.
Diane, I don't know really. I just cannot understand that if the American public really "gets it", how in the world can people like Janet Napolitano, John McCain, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, in short, all the people who continue the neglect of the American citizenry's saftey and best interests, keep getting elected OVER AND OVER AND OVER. It is similar to having a friend who claims to have your best interests at heart, but never ever passes up a chance to kick you in the teeth when they can. Why would people keep such a person as a friend or have anything at all to do with him. Why do we keep these same politicians and allow them to play with our safety, jobs, and quality of life in general???
BUILD THE BORDER FENCE ACCORDING TO IT'S ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION. NOT THE SHAM FENCE WE HAVE NOW!
VOTE FOR WALTER MOORE as a the new mayor for Los Angeles, who is against illegal immigration and police sanctuary policies
LEARN THE UGLY TRUTH?
Harry Reid starts new push for amnesty!
JUDICIAL WATCH is one of very few advocate watchdog legal groups that see illegal immigration, as a progressive cataclysmic nightmare for the working American. The fact is America settles the largest population of new immigrants in the world. The liberal media number of 12 million illegal aliens hasn't changed in ten years? The courts are Judicial Watch strongest tool against such issues as illegal immigration--not immigration, E-Verify, employer sanctions, 247(g) police enforcement, sanctuary states and cities, foreign national gang members, the NAFTA/CAFTA unfair trade agreements that are stealing jobs, outsourcing US jobs, political corruption, the sham border fence and other criminal enterprises that fester below the surface. Read the uncensored facts not lies at www.judicialwatch.org, www.americanpatrol.com
MEXICO ALSO HAS AN AGENDA KNOWN AS "AZTLAN" WHERE THEY PLAN TO TAKE OVER THE U.S. STARTING WITH THE SW THEY SAY IS THEIRS. MEXICO ONLY OWNED THIS AREA (7 U.S. STATES)FOR ALL OF 24 YEARS, LESS THAN EVERYONE ELSE WHO HAD IT AT ANY TIME. NEVERTHELESS, THEY PLAN TO DO IT BY THEIR INVADING HORDES OF ILLEGAL ALIENS. THEY ALSO HAVE INFILTRATED OUR SCHOOLS WITH THEIR TEACHINGS OF "HATE" AND "REVOLUTION" AND OUR COURTS WITH MANY OF THEIR CHICANO SUPPORTERS WHO ARE NOW POLITICIANS IN OUR SYSTEM. THIS MUST BE STOPPED! OF COURSE, YOU SAY, WHY WOULD MEXICO WANT TO DO THIS WHEN THEY CAN'T EVEN RUN THEIR OWN COUNTRY. VERY TRUE, BUT EGO TAKES OVER. ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE IS A VERY DANGEROUS COMBINATION!
Reference on homeland security
The U.S. is in danger from every port of entry, every border. It's not just the Mexican or Canadian borders, it's every airport bringing flights from foreigh countries. Middle Eastern's fly to Canada, Mexico, and then come across their borders to the US with nothing ever done. Many stay in Canada, get paper work, passports, etc., then come to the US and stay illegally. Our country is swamped with illegals from almost every country, and our government isn't doing anything to protect us. Bring our military home, let them round up the illegals and ship them home, and secure our borders once and for all. NC and a few other states have an unbelievable number of illegal M/E, they form corporations, open their own business by laundering their money from criminal acts, again, nothing is done. They obtain a "Privilege Lic" again no one questions anything. Mexican's work, but you'll never see an Middle Easterner work for anyone but family/friends, and that's usually illegal, never paying taxes.
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November is coming, November is coming...
Democrats can expect a nationwide foot in the ass for refusing to enforce federal immigration law, and out of control spending.
Since when do we let President pick and choose which laws to enforce? We wont let him ignore the law in exchange for ethnic votes...
If I were the President of United States,I would surround military forces instead of homeland security and cover all the nationwide. I really like military forces. It is a glory. I love to see military helicopters. I favor military forces than homeland and cops. Cops are nothing. They are just simple. Military forces around makes me feel good and glorious and makes me feel exalted and extolled and gives me a chilling in my skin of glory. I used to be among militia forces that made me feel like a Machiavelli. Live long the military forces! I love it. It is my glory.
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