Tempers rise as US cracks down on drug trafficking along Mexican border
By Adam Thomson in El Paso, Texas

Published: June 2 2009 03:00 | Last updated: June 2 2009 03:00

It has just gone noon in El Paso, Texas, and a cacophony of car horns screams out in the blistering heat as drivers with frayed tempers wait in line to cross the border with Mexico.

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in 2001, when US authorities chose security over speed in processing the long lines of cars and people crossing into the US, such scenes have become commonplace. But today, the queue is for people travelling south to Mexico - a journey that until recently took no time at all.

"It's ridiculous," says Héctor Chavira, a delivery man driving a beaten-up Ford Ka that has no air conditioning. "You get used to it going the other way, but this?"

It may not look like it, but Mr Chavira is experiencing first hand the clearest sign yet of Washington's changing strategy towards the war on drugs.

Since late March, the administration of Barack Obama has started to in-spect southbound traffic on all the main routes towards Mexico to stem the flow of weapons used by Mexico's violent drugs cartels.

US officials have called the inspections a "sea change" in the administration's approach. "For the first time, we recognise that the existence of drug trafficking is a function of consumption here," said Alan Bersin, US assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Homeland Security and Washington's de facto border tsar, at a press conference in El Paso this week. "It is about coresponsabilidad ," he added in stuttering Spanish.

Mexico has welcomed the move. According to Monte Alejandro Rubido, the country's executive secretary of national security, 90 per cent of the arms used in drugs-related crimes south of the border come from the US. Since the Mexican government declared an all-out war on drugs in December 2006, it has seized 41,000 weapons and 5m live cartridges.

But is the strategy working? The southbound inspections, which are taking place along the entire 2,000-odd miles of the US border with Mexico, look thorough enough.

Following the press conference with Mr Bersin this week, one rangy border patrol agent armed with a gun, a flashlight and a silver hammer crawled under an ageing white pick-up for a pack of television cameras. Tap, tap, tap . . . tap, tap, tap came the sound as he probed the vehicle's underbelly for cavities containing cash and guns.

Results have been less impressive, however. In the 2009 fiscal year to date, US authorities have seized just 1,000 weapons along the entire south-western border - a comparatively low number when compared with the more than 2,300 drugs-related murders so far in Mexico this year, and more than 5,000 last year.

Moreover, at the El Paso field office, one of the south-west's busiest crossings, seizures since the inspections started have been particularly disappointing. Between March 12 and today, Customs and Border Protection, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US Border Patrol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a host of other federal and state agents seized a grand total of two weapons.

In the meantime, waiting times to cross into Mexico are growing. Mr Cook says that tailbacks during rush hour can often stretch two miles, meaning delays for commuters of between three and four hours. He says that Brownsville, another important port of entry in Texas, is suffering similar issues.

"We have been working closely with Border Protection to make sure that we accommodate these inspections while facilitating the movement of goods and services . . [but] we realise that we still have significant problems," he said.

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