General: Border 'is not secure,' 18,000 sex slaves,
drugs, cross, 'no problem'



U.S. Southern Command Commander Gen. John F. Kelly speaks to reporters during his last briefing at the
Pentagon in Washington, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By Paul Bedard (@SecretsBedard) 4/14/16 8:59 AM

The just retired Marine Corps general in charge if U.S. Southern Command said Wednesday that 18,000 adolescent girls, "little boys," hundreds of tons of cocaine and heroin, and tens of thousands of illegals cross the U.S.-Mexico border with ease every year.

"If all of that is getting in, no problem, then it would argue that our border is not secure," retired Gen. John F. Kelly said matter of factly at a Senate hearing on drug trafficking. He left the post, based in Miami, in January.

"Anything that we demand in this country they will provide," he said of Latin and South American criminal gangs.

Kelly's testimony at a hearing on America's demand for drugs, called by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee, was a sobering indictment of the administration's inability to secure the southern border.

In just two minutes, he listed exactly what gets through and how fast items like drugs are distributed by criminal networks that control the flow in and out of the United States.

"18,000 young women, mostly adolescents, young girls, are trafficked into our country every year as sex workers. I don't think they know they are coming here to be sex workers," he told Johnson.

"Some little boys as well to provide the same services," said Kelly, a celebrated general who served 45 years.

"We think that an unlimited amount of drugs get into this country. In the hundreds of tons. Not even counting marijuana, in the hundreds of tons, of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, gets in, no problem, gets all the way to Portland, Maine, as fast as it gets to San Diego," he added.

"We know that tens of thousands of people come into this country, I'm not talking about the economic people seeking a better life, I'm talking about sex workers and other people, they here no problem," said Kelly.

Terrorists too, although he said the criminal networks aren't interested in them, explaining that the gangs are most interested in drugs.

"These people who that control the networks don't check passports, they don't check bags," said Kelly.
But if people want to get in, he added, "You will get in, you will get in."

His solution was for the country to reduce demand for the illegal goods.

Johnson put the focus on border security, which he said is poor.

"We spend approximately $25 billion per year on our "war on drugs." According to testimony before this committee, we interdict less than 10 percent of illegal drugs coming across our southwest border and somewhere between 11 and 18 percent coming in through our maritime borders. We are losing this war, and the low price of heroin combined with the growing number of heroin overdoses in every corner of America is evidence of that fact," said the chairman.

"It is time to seriously reassess our strategies regarding America's insatiable demand for drugs, our war on drugs, and the lack of border security that is one result," he added.


Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ge...rticle/2588467