National Security

Illegals At Border Distract Attention Away From Drug Smugglers

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David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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There’s an added dark side to the influx of illegals along the U.S.-Mexico border: While border guards are dealing with migrants, drug smugglers are delivering their deadly cargo.

As the Washington Examiner reports, the sleight of hand is all about focusing attention on one problem so another illegal venture can continue with relative ease.

Smugglers make anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, which allows them to buy illegal tickets into America and make drug smuggling an extremely profitable enterprise for organized crime

“The smuggling organizations — they’re in it for the money,” Paul Beeson told the Examiner. Beeson is the Department of Homeland Security’s Joint Task Force West director.

But there’s even more money in drug smuggling. So, to combat a tougher drug policy from President Donald Trump, the smugglers have decided it’s easier to move drugs past the border guards when they’re too preoccupied with a swarm of illegal migrants showing up and attempting to cross into the United States.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan explains that the smugglers “use families and children to tie up Border Patrol resources while they bring narcotics through an adjacent point of the border,” according to the Examiner, adding that “it takes time and energy and focus away from the hardened smugglers and criminals.”

The border patrol is mandated by law to arrest and detain illegals. When the number of those migrants becomes unmanageable, border guards are less likely to notice the drug smugglers moving their products across the border at points of entry that are denuded of agents.

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