The federal government has posted signs along a major
interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the
U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because
of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican
drug cartels now control some parts of the state.
The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and
Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix
with San Diego.
They warn travelers that they are entering an "active drug and
human smuggling area" and they may encounter "armed criminals
and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed."
Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs
encourage travelers to "use public lands north of Interstate 8"
and to call 911 if they "see suspicious activity."
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center
of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities
east and west, attests to the violence. He said his deputies are
outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn
desert stretches of his own county.
"Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona," he
said. "They literally have scouts on the high points in the
mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement.
They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision
goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.
"This is going on here in Arizona," he said. "This is 70 to 80
miles from the border - 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in
the United States."
He said he asked the Obama administration for 3,000 National
Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15
signs.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer condemned what she called the federal
government's "continued failure to secure our international
border," saying the lack of security has resulted in important
natural recreational areas in her state being declared too
dangerous to visit.
In a recent campaign video posted to YouTube, Mrs. Brewer -
standing in front of one of the BLM signs - attacked the
administration over the signs, calling them "an outrage" and
telling President Obama to "Do your job. Secure our borders."
BLM spokesman Dennis Godfrey in Arizona said agency officials
were surprised by the reaction the signs generated when they
were put up this summer.
"We were perhaps naive in setting the signs up," he said. "The
intention of the signs was to make the public aware that there
is potential illegal activity here. But it was interpreted in a
different light, and that was not the intent at all."
He said there should be "no sense that we have ceded the land,"
adding that no BLM lands in Arizona are closed to the public.
"I kind of liken it to if I were visiting a city I were not
familiar with and asked a policeman if it were safe to go in a
particular area," Mr. Godfrey said.
Rising violence along the border has coincided with a crackdown
in Mexico on warring drug gangs, who are seeking control of
smuggling routes into the United States.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has waged a bloody campaign
against powerful cartels, yesterday announcing the arrest of
Texas-born Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez - a powerful cartel leader
captured outside of Mexico City on Monday evening.
More than 28,000 people have died since Mr. Calderon launched
his crackdown in late 2006, and the bloodshed shows no sign of
ending. Law enforcement authorities have been warning for more
than two years that the dramatic rise in border violence
eventually would spread into the U.S.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council,
which represents all 17,500 of the Border Patrol's front-line
agents, said areas well north of the border are so overrun by
armed criminals that U.S. citizens are being warned to keep out
of those locations.
"The federal government's lack of will to secure our borders is
painfully evident when signs are posted well north of the border
warning citizens that armed and dangerous criminals are roaming
through those areas with impunity," he said. "Instead of taking
the steps necessary to secure our borders, politicians are
attempting to convince the public that our borders are more
secure now than ever before.
"Fortunately, some responsible civil servants are candidly
warning the public about the dangers that exist not just along
the border but, in some cases, well beyond," he said. "This
situation should alarm all sensible people, and should spur
endless demands that our legislators take whatever actions are
necessary to restore law and order to these areas."
Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican and a member of the House
Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, said the federal
government's new border security plan apparently is to "erect
some signs telling you it's not safe to travel in our own
country."
"If you are planning on loading up the station wagon and taking
the kids to Disneyland, the federal government doesn't advise
going through Arizona - it's too dangerous and they can't
protect you," said Mr. Poe. "These signs say to American
citizens, the federal government has ceded this area to the drug
cartels. Don't come here; we can't protect you."
Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House
Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on
Homeland Security, called the signs "an insult to the citizens
of border states."
"American citizens should not have to be fearful for their lives
on U.S. soil," he said. "If the federal government would do its
job of enforcing immigration laws, we could better secure the
border and better protect the citizens of border states."
Michael W. Cutler, a retired 31-year U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) senior criminal investigator and
intelligence specialist, said the BLM warning signs suggest the
U.S. government is "ceding American territory to armed criminals
and smugglers."
Meanwhile, he said, politicians in Washington, D.C., including
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, continue to claim
the border is now more secure than ever and, as a result, it is
time for comprehensive immigration reform.
"How much more land will our nation cede to drug dealers and
terrorists? At what point will the administration understand its
obligations to really secure our nation's borders and create an
immigration system that has real integrity?" Mr. Cutler said.
"At the rate we are going, the 'Red, White and Blue' of the
American flag will be replaced with a flag that is simply white
- the flag of surrender."
Ms. Napolitano said this week that U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) would begin flying a Predator B drone out of
Corpus Christi, Texas, on Wednesday, extending the reach of the
agency's unmanned surveillance aircraft across the length of the
1,956-mile border with Mexico.
Last month, Mr. Obama signed a $600 million bill to beef up
security along the southwestern border. The bill funds 1,000
more Border Patrol agents, as well as 250 CBP officers and two
more unmanned aerial vehicles.
Two years ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
the investigative arm of Homeland Security, said in a report
that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless and had
begun targeting not only rivals, but federal, state and local
police. ICE said the violence had risen dramatically as part of
"an unprecedented surge."
The Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, in
its 2010 drug threat assessment report, called the cartels "the
single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States."
It said Mexican gangs had established operations in every area
of the United States and were expanding into rural and suburban
areas. It said assaults against U.S. law enforcement officers
along the southwestern border were on the increase - up 46
percent against Border Patrol agents alone.
At the same time, the Justice Department brought a lawsuit to
stop a new immigration enforcement law in Arizona, saying it
violated the Constitution by trying to supersede federal law and
by impairing illegal immigrants' right to travel and conduct
interstate commerce.
Mr. Cutler said it was "outrageous" for the BLM to direct
travelers to dial 911 to report suspicious activities since the
calls do not go to the federal government but to state and local
police. He said the signs are telling Americans to call state
and local law enforcement authorities to deal with border
lawlessness while at the same time telling Arizona that only the
federal government can write and enforce immigration laws.
"You can't make this stuff up," he said.
Mr. Godfrey said that just because the signs direct travelers
who witness illegal activity to call 911, "that does not mean
that only a local agency will respond."
"The idea is that people will get help as quickly as they can,"
he said.
Sheriff Babeu has dealt firsthand with the rising violence in
his county since his 2008 election. One of his deputies, Louie
Puroll, was shot and critically wounded in April after he
spotted five men he suspected of transporting drugs along a
remote span of desert near Interstate 8 and Arizona 84.
He said his experience makes him see the issue differently from
the administration in Washington.
"The president is only looking at this from a political
perspective," he said. "Everything is not fine. Everything is
not OK."
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