Pubdate: Thu, 10 Apr 2014
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Times, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Kelly Riddell

SHERIFFS WARN DANGERS OF CARTELS REACH FAR BEYOND THE BORDER

Outmanned and outgunned, local law enforcement officers are alarmed 
by the drug and human trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping and money 
laundering that Mexican drug cartels are conducting in the U.S. far 
from the border.

U.S. sheriffs say that securing the border is a growing concern to 
law enforcement agencies throughout the country, not just those near 
the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

"If we fail to secure our borders, then every sheriff in America will 
become a border sheriff," said Sam Page, sheriff of Rockingham 
County, N.C. "We're only a two-day drive from the border and have 
already seen the death and violence that illegal crossings brings 
into our community."

Sheriff Page, whose county has about 94,000 residents, noted that a 
Mexican cartel set up one of its drug warehouses about a mile from his home.

"These men are coming into our county with more firepower than I 
have," he said Wednesday. "I'm literally outgunned."

The sheriff in North Carolina was one of several from across the 
country attending Hold Their Feet to the Fire, an annual two-day 
radio confab in Washington organized by the Federation for American 
Immigration Reform.

Rusty Fleming, a spokesman for the Hudspeth County Sheriff 's Office 
in Texas, is on the front lines of the border battle and said the 
U.S. side is losing.

"These cartels are so sophisticated. They're getting affluent white 
teenagers to help them encrypt their software; they do digital 
money-laundering, can hack into government databases and actively 
recruit our agents to keep one step ahead. The rest of America is 
just now getting a taste of what we've been dealing with for years," 
Mr. Fleming said.

He estimates that cartels have infiltrated more than 3,000 U.S. 
cities and are recruiting local gangs, former prisoners and teenagers 
to do their dirty work.

"There's no doubt they're spreading themselves very rapidly and very 
deep into our U.S. interior," said Mr. Fleming, who directed the 
documentary "Drug Wars" and has testified before Congress about the drug trade.

Sheriff Page said Rockingham County has jailed 194 illegal immigrants 
on criminal charges since 2010. Of those arrested, 10 were released 
and later rearrested. Six were deported only to re-enter the country, 
re-establish themselves in his neighborhood and get rearrested.

North Carolina has the second-busiest drug trafficking route in the 
South, after the region around Atlanta.

"We can't have open borders," Sheriff Page said. "We need to track 
who's coming in and out of our country. If we don't know who's here, 
how are we going to protect ourselves?"

Law enforcement officers in Frederick County, Md., are experiencing 
firsthand the proliferation of cartels.

"It's a huge problem for our public safety and a growing problem in 
our jurisdiction," Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins said. "The 
federal government can't take care of this problem alone. Every state 
and law enforcement officer needs to be able to enforce immigration 
laws to be effective."

About 9 percent of Frederick County arrests involve illegal 
immigrants, according to the sheriff's office.

Since entering into an agreement with U.S. Immigrations and Customs 
Enforcement in early 2008, the Frederick County Sheriff 's Office has 
detained 1,250 illegal immigrants, 50 of whom have had connections to 
Mexican drug cartels and organized crime, Sheriff Jenkins said.

"The success of the program is not in the numbers; it's who is 
actually getting arrested," the sheriff said. "Do I want Mexican gang 
members on the streets of Frederick County? Hell no."

He noted that the county recently deported to Colombia a convicted 
pedophile who was in the U.S. illegally.

"This program works, but there's such a political fallout from using 
it, many county sheriffs won't," Sheriff Jenkins said.

He cited criticism from groups opposed to the federal mobilization of 
local law enforcement officers in immigration enforcement.

Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer 
Organizing Network, said such programs waste federal money and are 
discriminatory.

"The idea of deputizing local sheriffs as front-line immigration 
reformers is a catastrophic mistake," said Chris Newman, the 
network's general counsel. "It distracts attention, chills people 
from reporting crime, encourages racial profiling and leads to the 
unconstitutional arrest and detainment of illegal immigrants."

Local law enforcers expressed frustration over the politicized nature 
of the immigration debate and said they are only trying to make their 
jurisdictions safer. Knowing who is in their jurisdictions illegally 
is a good start, they said.

Sheriff Page said that tracking expired visas, using biometrics at 
points of entry along the border, and further empowering ICE and 
local law enforcement would help tremendously. The House Judiciary 
Committee is considering such measures in immigration reform bills.

Mr. Fleming, who has been dealing with border issues for years, says 
more stringent measures are needed.

"There is a very, very big opposition to calling these organizations 
what they really are: narcoterrorists," he said. "When you label them 
as a narcoterrorists, we can pursue and target them under the Patriot 
Act. This is one of the major things that we need to do because of 
the level of sophistication they have. We have a saying on the 
border: 'If it gets by us today, it's going to be your problem tomorrow.'"
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom