Thread: Crime Increases Along Mexican Border

Crime Increases Along Mexican Border
By Staff
Apr 24, 2007

Tighter security on the U.S.-Mexican border is leading to an increase in violent crime, especially in Arizona, a report said.

Roaming bandits killed at least eight in attacks on smugglers in Arizona during the first three months of 2007, the Christian Science Monitor reported Tuesday. Additionally, U.S. Border Patrol agents were attacked by people attempting to cross the border illegally 112 times in that time period -- an 18 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.



"It is an unintended consequence of the hardening of the border," says Alonzo Pena, special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for Arizona. "Because of stronger border patrol, it's harder for the smugglers to get their commodity -- whether drugs or aliens -- across. It's costing (the smugglers) more, so the value for that commodity goes up, as does the level of protection, usually through violence."

Law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction in border areas say nearly every category of crime has risen in recent months.

"It is a lucrative underground business sector that no doubt is generating millions of dollars in profits, and some see this as worth fighting for, and even killing for," says Nestor Rodriguez, an immigration expert at the University of Houston.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/break ... 6753.shtml

In ordinary times part of the obstacle to a drug trade would be financing a buy, another part in smuggling and part in getting the drugs sold. Now with the current conditions the drug price would go down south of the border and the availability would go up. On this side the price would go up and the number of sources would go down. The rewards would be concentrated in a successful crossing and the suppliers and buyers would resent the changes in terms. There is another word for an illegal border crosser even a hosemaid or landscaping day laborer with limited coyote funds...a mule.