The No. 1 Threat to Texas — and It Has Nothing to Do With
Politics or Economics
Mar.
28, 2013 2:19pm
In this Sept. 4, 2012, photo, the sun casts
a shadow on the U.S.-Mexico border fence that passes through the Nature
Conservancy’s southernmost preserve in Brownsville, Texas. Since 2008, hundreds
of landowners on the border have sought fair prices for property that was
condemned to make way for the fence, but many of them received initial offers
that were far below market value. Credit: AP
The Department of Homeland Security and the
other federal agencies can continue downplaying the threat that an unsecure
border represents to the United States of America — but that won’t keep Mexican
drug cartels from operating freely in states like Texas.
Contradicting Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s claim that “our borders have, in fact,
never been stronger,” a new report released by the Texas Department of Public Safety
(DPS) reveals Mexican drug cartels are operating in the Lone Star State and
are the No. 1 threat to Texas.
“The threat to Texas is significant due to
the prevalence of lucrative trafficking routes and smuggling networks
throughout the state, as well as the state’s proximity to cities and towns
steeped in cartel violence and influence just across the border in Mexico,” the
report reads.
While Texas faces a full spectrum of “unique
challenges to public safety and homeland security,” drug cartels are at the top
of the list.
The Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, La Familia
Michoacana, Beltran Leyva and even the Sinaloa Cartel are all operating out of
Texas, including Cameron, Hidalgo and Zapata Counties.
“These powerful and ruthless criminal
organizations use military and terrorist tactics to battle each other and the
government of Mexico for control over the lucrative U.S. drug and human
smuggling markets,” according to the report. “The violence associated with this
conflict has increased significantly since 2006. Some 60,000 lives have been
lost, and cartel tactics in Mexico have escalated with the continued use of
torture and beheading, improvised explosive devices, military-grade weapons
such as grenades, and attacks against U.S. officials and diplomatic
facilities.”
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And with thousands of Texans and Mexicans crossing
the border daily to visit family or conduct business, the drug war has hit
close to home for many residents on both sides of the Rio Grande.
“I just hope that the legislators know that
until things settle down in Mexico we don’t know how things are going to go,”
Brownsville Police Chief Orlando C. Rodriguez said. “We’re just going to have
to wait and see, but one thing that is important to me is the continued support
we have with federal agencies and how we are sharing information.”
The reality of cartel violence in
Brownsville became publicly apparent as early as September 2010 in what had
been dubbed the “FM 511 murders.” Two men were found shot to death inside a
gray Dodge Ram pickup that was riddled with bullets. The truck was found on FM
511, a few miles away from the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S.
Border Patrol Station.
Police linked the killings to Mexican drug
cartels. The suspects accused in the murders are still at large.
Rodriguez said it’s not new or a surprise
that cartels were named the No. 1 threat to Texas.
The report argues the threat from Mexican
cartels is extremely high due to the “wide range of criminal activity in which
they are engaged, both in Mexico and in Texas.”
“Cartel members and associates are involved
in the cross-border trafficking of people, weapons, drugs, and currency. This
involvement is either direct through the use of cartel members, or indirect
through other affiliated criminal organizations paying fees to transit cartel
territory,” the report adds.
In
this Sept. 4, 2012, photo, a man retrieves his mail near the U.S.-Mexico border
fence in Brownsville, Texas. Since 2008, hundreds of landowners on the border
have sought fair prices for property that was condemned to make way for the
fence, but many of them received initial offers that were far below market
value. Credit: AP
Among other increasing threats, cartels are
using explosives and narco-blockades on the U.S. side of the border.
And as the Obama administration continues to
impose more restrictions of U.S. Border Agents and other law
enforcement officials, the DPS report found that “smugglers and others
associated with Mexican cartels have shown an increase in aggression toward
U.S. law enforcement officers, including shootings, vehicle assaults and other
threats to officer safety.”
TheBlaze reported on Thursday that the U.S.
border will soon be “25 percent more vulnerable” as ICE agents have their hours
slashed, which the Obama administration claims is a consequence of the
sequester.
Additional significant threats include:
- Statewide
prison gangs pose the second most significant organized crime threat in
Texas. Many gangs now work directly with the Mexican cartels, gaining
substantial profits from drug and human trafficking. Prison gangs operate
within and outside the prison system, and are responsible for a
disproportionate amount of violent crime.
- Criminal
aliens, who may not be affiliated with cartels and gangs, also pose a
threat. From October 2008 to December 2012, Texas identified a total of
141,982 unique criminal alien defendants booked into Texas county jails.
These individuals are responsible for at least 447,844 individual criminal
charges, including 2,032 homicides and 5,048 sexual assaults.
- Criminal
organizations and individuals are engaging in the exploitation and
trafficking of children for financial gain. These heinous crimes subject
children to violence, extortion, forced labor, sexual assault and
prostitution. Some children are more vulnerable to exploitation, including
unaccompanied alien children, as well as those who are lost, missing or
abducted. There are currently 76,272 sex offenders registered in Texas,
and at least 60,871 of these offenders had a child victim.
- Most
recently, terrorism has become disaggregated with individual and would-be
terrorists acting alone engaged in jihad. Nidal Hasan is the most
prominent example of this type of terrorist, killing 13 U.S. servicemen at
Fort Hood on November 5, 2009. Over the past five years in Texas, there
have been four other Islamic extremist plots and two anti-government
terrorist plots. In addition, there have been documented incidents of
foreign nationals with links to terrorism entering the United States from
Mexico using existing human trafficking and human smuggling networks
operated by the cartels, though not in an active conspiracy with the
cartels.
To
read the entire Texas DPS threat overview report, click here.
1 comment:
I BEG TO DIFFER....IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH CORRUPT POLOTICS.....THESE POLICIES ARE SET BY POLITICIANS..... IF WE ELIMINATED ALL THE CORRUPT POLITICIANS (MOST ALL THAT WE HAVE NOW) CORRUPT MILITARY, AND BANKERS WE WOULD BE WELL ON THE WAY TO FULLY RESTORING ARE GOVERNMENT. IF WE KEEP SITTING ON OUR BUTTS AND KEEP FINDING EXCUSES WHY WE WANT TO FIND EVERYTHING ELSE i.e. BASEBALL, FOOTBALL, FISHING ETC. MORE IMPORTANT, THERE WILL COME A DAY WHEN WE WILL ONLY BE ABLE (IF WE RE STILL ALIVE) TO DO THAT IN OUR MINDS.... THERE ARE 2 TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD THE DO'ERS AND DREAMERS....
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