ILLEGAL ALIEN DRUG SMUGGLERS HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

By Michael Cutler
June 8, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

The news report that appeared in the Sunday edition of the Washington Times "Mexican drug cartels 'hide in plain sight' in U.S." http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... ght-in-us/ should be of great concern to all Americans, including our nation's "leaders."

This news report about the drug crisis confronting our nation makes it clear that this is not a border crisis but a crisis for our entire nation.

Although I was an INS officer for 30 years, I devoted roughly one half of my career or about 15 years, working in conjunction with the FBI, DEA, ATF and other law enforcement agencies on the federal, state and local level and even in conjunction with law enforcement agencies of foreign governments to identify, investigate and then dismantle drug trafficking organizations.

In the late 1980's when I was assigned to the DEA's Unified Intelligence Division in New York, I conducted an analysis of arrest reports and found that in New York City, some 60% of the individuals arrested by the DEA and the DEA Task Force for drug trafficking and related crimes were identified as being "foreign born," while nationally, the statistic ran to about 30% of all defendants arrested by the DEA.

It was clear that the drug traffickers were embedding themselves in communities in which the general population looked much the same as the traffickers looked because they moved into neighborhoods in which a significant segment of the population came from the same countries that they did.

This was done, I believe, for 3 reasons. First of all, they wanted to live in a community in which they would be comfortable. They wanted to have the same sort of food, music and other cultural resources that they were accustomed to. They also wanted to find women that they could relate to.

Additionally, by moving in to such neighborhoods, it was far easier for them to blend in and "hide in plain sight."

Finally, by living in a neighborhood in which most of the residents came from the same country that they did, they could intimidate people who might become suspicious of their activities. They could threaten to not only harm the person who might discover what they were up to but they could also threaten that person's family members in his (her) home country.

I have often noted that it has been said that an effective spy is someone who would not attract the attention of the waiter or waitress at the proverbial "greasy spoon diner." The same could be said of a terrorist or a drug dealer.

In the 1980's drug traffickers often drove "tricked-out" cars that may have appeared to be befitting a pimp. This called attention to them and they found that those customized cars attracted the attention of law enforcement. They learned the need to operate in a stealthy fashion. The news report I have attached below delves into this issue.

It also delves into the use of long haul trucks that can, as the article noted, can reach 80% of the American population in 48 hours or less.

Yet, as I noted a few days ago in a commentary about the Mexican truckers, http://www.newswithviews.com/Cutler/michael160.htm the administration is apparently intent on opening up our nation's roads to Mexican trucks, while members of the administration are quick to blame the drug addiction of the American citizens, on the huge sums of cash flowing into the bank accounts of the violent Mexican drug cartels!

The absolute last thing that our country should be doing, if we are really serious about this situation, is to open our highways to 18 wheel trucks from Mexico to facilitate their movement throughout our country!

I have witnessed the murder of a number of my colleagues in the law enforcement community who were conducting narcotics investigations. They paid the "ultimate price" for attempting to protect our nation and our citizens from the scourge of narcotics. Yet the politicians are seemingly doing everything in their power to make the "War on Drugs" as ineffectual as they possibly can.

According to the news report, some 38 billion dollars is accumulated each year by the Mexican Drug cartels. Most of that money flows from our country directly into their bank accounts. Than money buys weapons, cars, trucks, boats, airplanes and sophisticated electronic equipment to thwart law enforcement. That money also pays bribes in Mexico and, as we have seen, in the United States.

The 38 billion dollars is money that is lost to our nation's economy and buys death and violence on both sides of the Mexican border.

The 38 billion dollars buys the destruction of the lives of those who become "hooked" on the drugs and wreaks havoc on the lives of the addicts' families.

But here is what is not being done:

Our borders are still far from secure. Illegal aliens easily enter our country and easily purchase stolen identities- a tactic that not only works for illegal aliens who mow lawns and wash dishes at restaurants, but is a tactic that international criminals and drug traffickers depend on in order to embed themselves in communities across our nation. This is also, as noted by the 9/11 Commission, used with great effectiveness by terrorists and those who support terrorism in our country.

Illegal aliens and the criminals who hid among them know that in this game of hide and seek, they can expect to win because our government refuses to hire an adequate number of special agents for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). As an INS agent who was assigned to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force for ten years, I bore witness on a day to day basis of just how much the enforcement of the immigration laws could help to dismantle drug trafficking organizations.

Here are 7 important reasons why our government must hire many more special agents for ICE and incorporate an adequate number of those ICE special agents in the investigations of international criminal and terrorist organizations if those investigations are to be successful:

Access to immigration files to provide investigative leads when a criminal alien is being sought as a fugitive or suspect of a crime.

Access to immigration file can also provide vital information to a judge when a criminal alien is arrested and the judge is attempting to set bail. The immigration file can provide evidence of risk of flight based on numerous identities, occasions when the defendant jumped bail in an immigration matter and failed to appear for a hearing. The file can also provide evidence of prior deportations. This could help to prevent those tragedies in which a criminal is arrested and then released on bail, only to commit another heinous crime.

If a plea bargain is being arranged, local and state prosecutors should work in close cooperation with federal immigration counsels to make certain that in the process of working out a plea-bargain arrangement that they don't inadvertently eliminate a conviction that have would rendered the alien deportable.

Working cooperatively with ICE, it would be far easier to cultivate informants. Informants are often essential to the successful investigation and prosecution of criminals and criminal organizations as well as terrorists and their associates. The immigration laws provide a huge “carrot and stickâ€