In an
interview on PBS’s “NewsHour” recently, the newly appointed
Secretary of Homeland Security said with a straight face that
there was no need for a security fence along the Mexican-United
States border. According to Janet Napolitano, what was needed was
enhanced surveillance cameras and more Border Patrol agents. In
other words, she listed all those things that a wall would assist
in controlling illegal immigration.
Why would a former Arizona governor and federal prosecutor take
such an illogical position? Certainly it’s not for budget
reasons. The Obama Administration has been searching frantically
for labor-intensive projects to lavish with funding. The
completion of the advanced high tech fence fits this bill
perfectly. The trouble is that to the Hispanic immigrant
population the border security fence is a symbol of efforts to
discriminate against it.
Whether or not such a view is valid, it is nonetheless a
politically exploitable feeling. And this is exactly what the
Obama Administration is doing. Its loyal adjutant at DHS, Janet
Napolitano, knows better, but she is a newly commissioned officer
in the Obama “politics first” battalion to whom pleasing Hispanic
voters is a top priority.
To add to this current game playing, Secretary Napolitano denied
that the violence in the northern Mexican border areas was
“spilling” over into the U.S. This obvious falsity was stated
despite full knowledge that the Mexican cartel drug wars has for
some time been creeping north into the southwest U.S. and even
more generally throughout the United States.
Political organizations within the American Hispanic community
perceive — perhaps correctly — that any acceptance of the fact
that Mexican drug wars are being extended to the U.S. carries a
pejorative connotation for those residents of Spanish-speaking
heritage as a whole. This has created a state of denial of
Hispanic gang activity that has been made into a litmus test for
Hispanic support of political candidates.
Playing to this fear of ethnic discrimination as a political
device was a favored tactic of the Obama electoral campaign and
continues today. Secretary Napolitano does just that by down
playing violence within the Spanish-heritage American community.
To do so, however, she has to shut her eyes to some obvious and
well-known facts.
A recent Associated Press
report stated: “Murder, kidnapping and other violent crimes
related to Mexican drug cartels are hitting cities like Phoenix
and Atlanta as well as the border region.…Mexican cartels are
believed to have set up operations across the U.S., even in
Anchorage.…’The violence follows the drugs,’ said FBI
agent-in-charge David Cuthbertson.” More than 700 drug
cartel-related kidnappings were reported in the Phoenix region
over the past two years and 19 confirmed Mexican cartel-directed
murders nationwide.
ATF estimates that 90% of the weapons recovered in Mexico came
from the U.S. The bureau calculates tens of thousands of assault
weapons, grenades, etc. have been smuggled into Mexico across the
U.S. border accounting for 5,630 deaths in Mexico’s northern
provinces in 2008. No spillover there!
The FBI has reported that the wholesale drug business, which
brings in several billion dollars to Mexico, connects with street
gangs — predominantly Hispanic — that operate the first bridge
of retail drug sales throughout the Southwest. Gang wars are
often directly related to the deadly Mexican cartel competition.
Maricopa County in the Phoenix area is under the jurisdiction of
a hard-hitting sheriff, Joe Arpaio. Sheriff Arpaio spent 25 years
in the DEA before entering local law enforcement. He has brought
his knowledge of Mexican criminal activity into play when
intervening in local crime. For this, he is repeatedly attacked
by various political organizations that charge his ICE-trained
deputies with discriminating against men of Hispanic ethnicity.
Where else would one look for Mexican drug connections?
All this is well known to former Arizona Governor Napolitano, and
nonetheless ignored. That the Obama Administration is so willing
to play ethnic politics in such an important area of law
enforcement is the most cynical exploitation. Commercial
interests cannot be excluded from this condemnation. Business
interests have worked to preserve the corridor of cheap labor
that flows from Mexico and now provides an additional ready
income in human smuggling for the drug cartels and their American
gang connections.
By not recognizing and acting on the interrelation and
interdependence of the Mexican drug cartels, their U.S.
distributors and commercially driven illegal immigration,
Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Obama White House deny
security to the American homeland.
