The Pink Flamingo :: What’s Going on in Juarez?

From the Opinionated Times comes a piece about the cops in Juarez.

My friend Maggie has a brother who lives in Juarez, married to a woman whose family has lived there for many years. They had a very good life up until the past few years. The problem with all the anti-immigration hype is the fact that Mexico has many social classes have been completely obscured. Once upon a time, life in Juarez was good.

When I moved to New Mexico a decade ago, it was nothing for someone to go to Juarez for a day trip shopping, to the dentist, to purchase eye glasses, or to a pharmacy where they could purchase prescription medication at a small percentage of the price it is here. People who lived in El Paso would go across the border a couple times a week for dinner, dancing, and the cantinas and night life. Heavens knows El Paso doesn’t have much. In many ways Juarez was the cultural sister of El Paso, it’s St. Paul to El Paso’s Minneapolis.

There were thousands of people (Americans) who lived in Juarez and would cross the border daily to work in El Paso. There were just as many Americans and ex-pat Mexicans who lived in El Paso who would cross the other way from El Paso to Mexico each day to work. This was life along the border.

Then the nativists who have nothing to do with the border and have probably never stepped foot in Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona before butting their ugly brains into the way people live here. The problems they have caused may not be solved for many years. They have destroyed a way of life that is several hundred years old, and perfectly LEGAL. They do not comprehend the fact that the Mexican US border is one of the busiest in the world with perfectly LEGAL commerce.

Things started to change about the time they started putting up that border wall in San Diego. The greater the enforcement along the border farther west, the greater the incident of crime. Juarez has now become an armed encampment, with the greatest concentration of criminal activity and drug running in both Mexico and the US right along that border. No one in their right mind now crosses into Juarez unless it is absolutely necessary.

Maggie’s brother lives in a state of terror. His once well kept yard is now surrounded by a huge fence, complete with concertina wire. A bus driver in Juarez, he is counting the days until retirement so he and his wife can move. They aren’t sure if they are planning to move to the US or away from Juarez where things are much more peaceful, in the interior of Mexico.

They sold their remaining car after the other one was stolen. It no longer pays to own a car in Juarez unless you have personal security. You become the target of kidnapping for ransom or simple theft. When he and his wife go out, they use his bus pass. They do not go out at night. They cross the border into Juarez now to meet Maggie and his family. It is no longer safe for Americans, even those with Hispanic backgrounds, to cross the border.

Maggie was telling me an American who is not Hispanic and does not speak Spanish like a native is taking their life into their own hands when they do go to Juarez. They become a target for theft, kidnapping and murder. She is terrified for her brother and his family. While they live in a very good neighborhood, it is only a matter of time before they are invaded and bullets start flying.

The problem is organized crime.
The problem is corruption.
The problem is narco-trafficking.
The problem is this nation’s unending demand for illegal narcotics.
The problem is the fact that nativists are demanding a crack down on illegal migrants, diverting money from the real problem, the movement of drugs into the US and the movement of stolen trucks and SUV’s and weapons into Mexico.

Nativists don’t comprehend the fact that there is more going on than their hard-line demand for anyone who isn’t “legal” to be rounded up like an animal and deported back to their home. Their incessant litany of “border security” hyped by visions of terrorists crossing in armies to slaughter everyone in their sleep is increasing the problem. They do not comprehend, or will ot comprehend, until we do something about the narco-trafficking we will have no security along the border.

The problem isn’t terror. We’re not talking about al Qaeda crossing illegally from Mexico, they can do that from Canada, legally so why go to all the trouble? The problem is the movement of illegal narcotics and no one cares to stop it. We are dealing with drug cartels who are out of control. We are dealing with this country’s insatiable appetite for their product with no end in sight.

Perhaps we would be better served to put some of that “border wall” money into intervention and treatment of drug addicts. The only way to solve the problem is to eliminate the need for illegal drugs. There will be no border security until this happens.

Malkin just doesn’t get it, or rather her guest poster doesn’t. He thinks the WPost article about guns going into Mexico is all wet, then gets technical about tye types of guns.

“…Arizona and Texas have become a "gunrunner's paradise," according to Garen Wintemute, a professor at the University of California at Davis who published a study on gun buying in the Southwest. Licensed dealers must conduct background checks, but unlicensed sellers can sell "personal collections" at weekend gun shows without background checks.
Laws on personal collections were established to allow people such as the widows of avid gun collectors to make sales without having to go through an elaborate licensing procedure. But unscrupulous sellers and buyers have taken advantage of the system, Newell said, setting up phony personal collections booths and making quick sales that are difficult to trace. "It can take less than a minute," said Wintemute, who has watched unlicensed dealers wearing sandwich boards at gun shows and piling weapons for sale into baby carriages.

Authorities have tracked smugglers who bought dozens of weapons at various shows in a single weekend. The guns are often purchased by middlemen, or straw purchasers, who sometimes get on-the-spot instructions by cellphone from Mexican drug traffickers. The straw purchasers often live in the United States, either legally or illegally.

A smuggler, or ant -- often the same person who bought the guns -- then slips the weapons into car trunks or false vehicle floors. Among the new weapons of choice for Mexican drug dealers are so-called variants of AK-47s and AR-15 assault rifles, which are shorter than standard models and can even be concealed in baggy pant legs, Newell said.

As in the drug trade, young women are often recruited as weapons smugglers, Newell said, because they are less likely to be targeted by inspectors. Smugglers frequently work in teams, he said, distracting border inspectors by dispatching a man "who looks like he just got out of prison" to stand in front of a young woman carrying a baby and hidden weapons.,,,”

The problem with Malkin’s guest poster, is I have my doubts as to whether this person has ever been to the border, laid eyes on Mexico or even been in Arizona, Texas, or New Mexico. (It is a problem most anti-immigration people have). If the source I met with about a month ago had not told me the same thing as detailed in the WPost article I would probably ignore this and consider it the usual Malkin stupidity. But – I’m sick and tired of these people who know nothing about the border regions spreading their own little version of paranoia.

It’s the drug war, stupid. It isn’t about godless terrorists coming across the border. It isn’t about immigration. It’s about a drug war and anti-immigration advocates who are either to dumb, blind, or stupid to realize they are being played like a piano.