Editor's note: This article is reprinted courtesy of the Rio Grande Guardian, www.riograndeguardian.com.
State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh says the approach taken to disrupt international Mafia operations in New York and Sicily in the 1980s should serve as a model for border communities battling drug cartels.
“What we need most in El Paso is an effective, targeted Department of Public Safety team, aimed at arresting key cartel operatives, forfeiting cartel assets and disrupting corridor movement of cocaine, heroin and marijuana,” said Shapleigh said, in news release issued Friday.
“For us, the model is the successful joint local, state and federal efforts in New York and Sicily to disrupt international Mafia operations in the 80s. Texas law enforcement must have the will to fight, to identify who we can work with, and to stay the course.”
Shapleigh chairs the Border Legislative Conference, a group comprising state lawmakers from the ten states along the U.S.-Mexico border. He made his views known in a news release in response to comments Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst made about drug cartels and border violence at the Republican Party Convention in Houston.
“The time has come to stop these murderous thugs in their tracks,” said Perry, to loud applause at his party’s convention. He said he wanted legislative action next session to deal with Texas-based gangs that coordinate with Mexican drug cartels.
Gangs such as MS-13, the Texas Syndicate, and Mexican Mafia are “vicious criminals that are regularly engaging in murder, kidnapping, extortion, child pornography and selling illicit drugs,” Perry said.
“The drug cartels and their minions might be winning battles and killing hundreds on the other side of the border, but, in Texas, they're going to lose the battle, they're going to lose the war.”
Dewhurst told the El Paso Times that he is concerned about the “dangerous illegal drug trafficking that's killing Americans and the increasing gang activity in virtually every city in the state.”
Shapleigh said that as a fifth generation El Pasoan, he would support Perry and Dewhurst in efforts to provide safe streets and strong communities in every corner of Texas.
“However border communities, such as El Paso, have the most to win or lose by the right or wrong approach to border security. And, with fellow Texans, our expertise must inform the right approach,” Shapleigh said.
Shapleigh said recent violence in Juarez has reminded El Pasoans of the importance of having a funded and competent border security program. He pointed out that the 316 homicides in Juarez in 2007 had already been surpassed in 2008.
“Today, Ciudad Juarez is patrolled by 3,000 soldiers and federal police, 180 heavily armed military vehicles, and three aircraft, including a helicopter gunship,” Shapleigh said. “Essentially, the powerful Juarez drug cartel is battling rival cartels in the east and west, as well as the Calderon administration.”
Shapleigh provided a summary from recent news accounts:
• About 80 percent of the murders are related to the drug trade.
• According to Mexico and anti-narcotics experts, the conflict has three fronts: Intra-cartel—internal struggles and the elimination of "traitors" within an organization; Inter-cartel—fighting between different organizations; and Government vs. cartels—the military and law enforcement's fight against drug organizations.
• The Juarez cartel is battling rival cartels to the east and west, and now has taken on the Calderon administration. To date, 14 policemen have been slain, including the director of the municipal police force.
• The violence has included kidnappings, car-to-car shootings on boulevards, and innocent bystanders being pelted by machine gun fire in broad daylight. This violence has now spread to the tourist zones.
“Our great state should move quickly and confidently to establish such teams along every major north south corridor, and not trade on fear aimed at working immigrants,” Shapleigh said.
“Especially, we must avoid any of the racial profiling violations of early Texas border security efforts, such as Operation Linebacker, where mothers delivering children to school were targeted.”
Shapleigh pressed home his point that racial profiling, which La Unión del Pueblo Entero has been concerned about in western Hidalgo County cities, should have no place in border security initiatives.
“From Theodore Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy, our nation has demonstrated the capacity to maximize the security of Americans without sacrificing our basic freedoms - regardless of who you are, where you live, or what happens to be the color of your skin,” Shapleigh said.
Carl Starr
June 17, 2008
Just as in the migrant issue raising 4th Amendment concerns, same with gangs, alot of case law addresses 'gang injunctions' etc and found anti-gang efforts unconstitutional, Morales vs Chicago being a major one ie at issue is probable cause for a stop, can it really be based on tatoo art or a 'illegal alien walk',,,
BobB
June 17, 2008
This is a difficult issue to find the right path. You have to be a bit concerned when a relatively liberal and enlightenedfellow like Shapleigh is calling for a massive escalation of the war on drugs, which merely feeds the criminal industrial complex and may or may not make life more secure. On the other hand, we need the security, and El Paso benefits from the build up (both in terms of safety, jobs and the inflow of money). While I am all for more security and reducing the pervasiveness of drugs, perhaps there are far more efficient and effective ways to confront and contain the cartels, such as refocusing government interdiction efforts through an effective mix of intelligent interdiction, decriminalization of nondangerous drugs such as marijuana, and better anti-drug awareness and rehab programs. But its hard to run for higher office these days in Texas suggesting "radical" (yet effective) solutions like this. Afjter all, nothing did more to found the mafia than prohibition, and nothing did more to wipe out the mafia than the simple stroke a pen re-legalizing alcohol.
Sputnik
June 17, 2008
Three cheers for Senator Shapleigh. I too oppose profiling. HOwever anyone who hires an illegal is breaking the law. THey should be punished by fines and the possibility of losing their license to do business.
That would eliminate the lure of money for illegals.
David K
June 17, 2008
HORRIBLE ARTICLE! Did the alphabet monster barf on this page or what?
There's a reason Newspaper Tree is the best and the Guardian isn't - this article is that reason.
Please never insult us again with this garbage. Send Crowder out there to get the story and he'll arrange it in a way that can be easily read.
Jerome Tilghman
June 17, 2008
At the national level, the Congress has been "kicking this can down the road" by failing to establish a clear, consistent common sense border security plan nor a coherant, common sense immigration policy.
Our message to Central and South America can be summed up with this metaphor: "...Uncle Sam stands on the southern border with each of two signs. In one hand "HELP WANTED" and the other hand -- KEEP OUT.
We have not sufficiently resourced the agancies to expedite 'legal' immigration. The US birth rate, our economy and Social Security and related entitlements dictate an urgency to properly resource INS agencies to expedite the transfer / in-processing
Economic woes among our southern neighbors make the populous prime candidates for the "quick and dangerous alternative" of drug trafficking to augment income or coyotes to make the dangerous trek north.
The average takek home pay for a Mexicann police officer is $250 perf month. That's about $60 a week. They could double their salary by simply "turning their head." If you are a police officer who ignors one cartel's sins and enforce the law against another, makes you a Juarez casualty. That's what we are seeing now.
Ths Congress is negligent and almost complicit in this problem. We allow the gun sales that help cartels combat and rival an armed Mexican military; we are the customers for the illegal drugs and we are intoxicated by cheap labor and the abudance of goods it produces.
The drug money finances our Afghan enemies and buys bombs, beans and bullets that kill American soldiers; and we buy the oild that helps finance OPEC nations -- especiallly those in Southwest Asia. Those dollars buy the IEDs in Iraq that give us 7 out of 10 American combat casualties.
Law enforcement coalitions are great. But instead of sending more American tax money into Central and South America via failed policies such as 'Plan Colombia' and "Plan Mexico" we need to invest in dismantling and destroying the market that create the demand.
We are our own worst enemy. We pay our lelgislators six figures so they can afford to buy 'distance' between themselves and the problem they helped to create. Gasoline is north of $4.50 per gallon; the oil market is unstable, but if I made $168,000 a year, it is not an urgent problem And a gullible America will send 96 percent of them back to Washington.
American GIs, hospitalized as a result of the war, are interned at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washinbgton DC. That hospital is less that 10 miles from the Capital and the White House. The care there (and other places) has proven substandard and we forgive a Congress that is right down the street -- for not knowing we had a medical problem in the Nation's Capital.
Finally, I have a problem with a legislature that aspires to make laws for a country for which they would not fight and presidential candidates who are allowed to campaign throughout the country -- be absent from their jobs -- and still draw full pay. Senator Shapleigh is right when he said: "...our nation has demonstrated the capacity to maximize the security of Americans without sacrificing our basic freedoms." We just keep sending basic, ordinary everyday Americans to basic training so they can stand between us and the basic dangers our law makers helped to create.
And people have said about me..."you have a nerve to think of challenging the status quo." I think the whole country could use a double dose of some kind of 'nerve.'
lv
June 17, 2008
My sentiments exactly BobB. We have to acknowledge that a big part of the problem with the drug industry in Mexico is because of the big demand in the United States. The issue will not get resolved until we (the US) realize and take responsibility for our part in it. Legalize it!
helen marshall
June 17, 2008
Sputnik seems to have read a different article...the issue is not illegal aliens.
Strongly second the comment by BobB. This is not just a law enforcement issue. If we create massive new law enforcement structures, they will never go away. The total militarization of the border is not the answer to improving the quality of life here.
The US MUST face its own complicity in this problem; we have demonized drug use for nearly 100 years, and treated the issue as a War, attacking ourselves. Education and treatment are the solution! While we have not had complete success with tobacco yet, cigarette use has dropped substantially - and would fall much further if the tobacco companies were not relentlessly pursuing a counter-campaign to encourage smoking. Decriminalizing drugs, without making them freely available on every street corner, would go a long way to cutting the legs off the cartels. Controling the firearms traffic in the US and the flood of weapons moving to Mexico, would help a lot as well.
We must ask ourselves why a situation that is so threatening to our security is allowed to persist, and worsen. The first obvious question is to ask, who benefits from the current situation, and the current emphasis on supply interdiction and military solutions? Could it be, for example, DEA? The prison system and its staff, and all those privately-owned prisons contracted to the state, which needs all those drug offenders to fill the cells; the drug-testing industry; the defense industry that produces the helicopters and blimps and all the other materiél that will be supplied to Mexico under Plan Mérida; the cartels themselves and the gangs in the US....it's a powerful array, no? Not too surprising that we don't change course or even reflect on our course.
Cassidy Ng Stones
June 17, 2008
David K - Steve Taylor is recognized as one of the best reporters in the state. You don't need to cast stones to make yourself feel better. Once in awhile, some people you hate (like the subject of this story) have actually said a nice thing or two about you.