Beyond the Rhetoric
By Harry C. Alford
The Wall along our southern border will indeed be built and it is at least 30 years overdue. Mexico does a lot of serious and legal trading with the United States. In fact, we have a trade deficit with them of over $60 billion annually. They are getting over on us and President Trump is going to deal with that. But that isn’t the problem the Wall will address.
Illegal immigration is alive and well. People living in the San Diego area are warned by traffic signs to beware of people running across Interstate 5 (like deer signs). I have experienced that. A couple of years ago, we were driving into the city and to my shock there were about 30 humans running across the freeway. Most of them were children and I had to swerve and brake at the same time. It was a blessing that the lane to my right was available. The caution signs were appropriate. I imagined most of the teenagers and adults in this group will first end up working as cheap labor in the farm areas. Many will end up in Oregon and Washington and California. That is an everyday thing across our border. Traveling to the destination seems to be no problem as illegal immigrants who work the fields are in just about every state in the union. This must be an impediment to unemployed American workers who would demand at least minimum wage.
Unfortunately, there is a very sleazy side to this. The male workers who live in areas of limited population are supplied comfort ladies. Where do they come from? The same place as the workers. They are teenage females who are led into crossing the American border and forced into sex slavery. My son noticed this shameful business while visiting a small town in Vermont. These girls would be sitting outside a large farm on benches waiting for the workers to get off from work. They would take their “John” into a cabin area located along the side of the farm. It shouldn’t take authorities too long to catch onto this and bust it up. They must go along with it and that is an American tragedy. This alone should make us threaten the annual foreign aid we give to Mexico if they don’t bring this to a stop.
That is just one problem that involves our southern border. Auto theft is another problem. It is quite easy to steal a car; pay off a Mexican border agent and sell it to a “chop shop.” That car will never be seen again and the Mexican authorities have little interest in finding it. If you visit border cities such as Tijuana, Juarez etc. never, never take your car and park it across the border.
The above are two problems that are generated by our southern neighbor. However, if you take all the problems that originate in Mexico and affect the United States and add them up the total would not begin to approach our biggest problem with the Mexican border – Cocaine. Over 90% of the cocaine that is smuggled into America is from Mexico. It seems to run freely despite the efforts of our border security guards.
The cocaine industry in Mexico is run by four major cartels. They are the Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, and the Colima Cartel. These are some of the most dangerous crime groups in the world. The Mexican Army has proven to be no match against them. The rate of corruption (politicians, military and police) is out of hand. 90% of the murders in the nation of Mexico are directly related to the cocaine drug industry. They have a presence in over 500 cities throughout the nation.
This is our challenge. Cutting down the flow of cocaine coming into our nation from Mexico. Don’t worry about marijuana. There is so much growing here since some U.S. areas have made it legal. In fact, the drug cartels from Mexico are buying significant amounts from legal Colorado pot shops. Then they distribute them to areas that still consider marijuana illegal. How ironic.
Cocaine is a scourge that comes into our nation to infect our population and wreak chaos throughout our land. We do need that Wall President Trump is talking about. More so to cut down on the availability of illegal drugs and the harm to our quality of life. An impenetrable wall would cut down on the traffic significantly. Then we can find a way to detect tunnels that are also used by the cartels. “Build that Wall.”
Mr. Alford is the co–founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce®. Website: www.nationalbcc.org Email: [email protected]
