Border

Another lesson in the futility of drug prohibition: Drug smugglers are using low-flying aircraft that look like motorized hang gliders to circumvent new fences along the U.S. border with Mexico. The planes, which began appearing in Arizona three years ago, are now turning up in remote parts of California and New Mexico. And in a new twist, the planes rarely touch the ground. Pilots simply pull levers that drop aluminum bins filled with about 200 pounds of marijuana for drivers who are waiting on the ground with blinking lights or glow-sticks. Within a few minutes, the pilots are back in Mexico.

As the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau has ratcheted up efforts to cope with the tide of crime sweeping across the Southwest border, Mexican drug trafficking organizations have stepped up efforts to infiltrate CBP and other federal, state and local agencies responsible for policing the border.

Mexican drug trafficking organization members threatened to kill U.S. agents working on the American side of the border. Republican Michael McCaul said a law enforcement bulletin was issued warning that Mexican traffickers were overheard plotting to kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Texas Rangers stationed along the border.

For decades, Colombian drug trafficking organization have pursued their trade with amazingly professional ingenuity, staying a step ahead of authorities by coming up with one innovation after another. When false-paneled pickups and tractor-trailers began drawing suspicion at US checkpoints, the traffickers and their Mexican partners built air-conditioned tunnels under the border. When border agents started rounding up too many human mules, one group of Colombian smugglers surgically implanted heroin into purebred puppies. But the drug runners’ most persistently effective method has also been one of the crudest — semi-submersible vessels that cruise or are towed just below the ocean’s surface and can hold a ton or more of cocaine.

The director of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Louie Gilot, said cases of Mexicans fleeing drug prohibition violence have risen significantly over the past two years and that the asylum seekers include former police officers, rights activists, journalists, business leaders and even government officials. Carlos Spector, an attorney, said the U.S. government is reluctant to grant political asylum to Mexican applicants because doing so means recognizing that aid from Washington is financing military abuses against the Mexican civilian population.