U.S. Proposes First Unmanned Border Crossing With Mexico
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Source: [url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/11/us-proposes-first-unmanne_n_1142115.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009[/url]
[quote]The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence. This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.
By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away.
The crossing, which would be the nation's first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations.
"People that want to be engaged in illegal activities along the border, ones that are engaged in those activities now, they're still going to do it," said William Wellman, Big Bend National Park's superintendent. "But you'd have to be a real idiot to pick the only place with security in 300 miles of the border to try to sneak across."
The proposed crossing from Boquillas del Carmen leads to a vast expanse of rolling scrub, cut by sandy-floored canyons and violent volcanic rock outcroppings. The Chihuahuan desert wilderness is home to mountain lions, black bears and roadrunners, sparsely populated by an occasional camper and others visiting the 800,000-acre national park.
Customs and Border Protection, which would run the port of entry, says the proposal is a safe way to allow access to the town's residents, who currently must travel 240 road miles to the nearest legal entry point. It also would allow park visitors to visit the town.
If the crossing is approved, Border Patrol would have eight agents living in the park in addition to the park's 23 law enforcement rangers.
"I think it's actually going to end up making security better," CBP spokesman William Brooks said.
"Once you've crossed you're still not anywhere. You've got a long ways to go and we've got agents who are in the area. We have agents who patrol. We have checkpoints on the paved roads leading away from the park."
A public comment period runs through Dec. 27 on the estimated $2.3 million project, which has support at the highest levels of government from both countries.
But U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican member of the House Homeland Security committee, questioned the wisdom of using resources to make it easier to cross the border.
"We need to use our resources to secure the border rather than making it easier to enter in locations where we already have problems with illegal crossings," McCaul said in an email. "There is more to the oversight of legal entry than checking documents. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) needs to be physically present at every point of entry in order to inspect for contraband, detect suspicious behavior and, if necessary, act on what they encounter."
While CBP will run the port of entry, the National Park Service is the driver behind the project, which it hopes will help conservation efforts on both sides of the border. Even as the National Park Service has increased cooperation with its Mexican counterpart, joint conservation has been limited by the inability of personnel to cross the border without making a circuitous 16-hour drive, Wellman said.
So the National Park Service is building the contact station just above the Rio Grande. It will house CBP kiosks where crossers will scan in their documents and talk to a customs officer in Presidio, the nearest port of entry, or another remote location. Park service employees will staff the station, offering information about the park and guiding people through the process.
Similar ports of entry are already in operation on remote parts of the border with Canada.
"We think we can do this without doing any damage to national security and possibly enhance security along the border by having better intelligence, better communication with people in Mexico," Wellman said.
The crossing would also restore a long-running relationship between the park, its visitors and the residents of Boquillas del Carmen, the town of adobe dwellings set a short distance from the river in Mexico.
For years, U.S. tourists added an international dimension to their park visit by wading or ferrying in a rowboat across the shallow Rio Grande to the town. There they bought handicrafts and tacos, providing much-needed cash in the isolated community.
But US officials discouraged such informal crossings in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted calls for tighter border security. Without access to tourists or supplies on the U.S. side, the town of just more than 100 people has seen a 42 percent drop in population from 2000 to 2010.
Gary Martin, who manages the Rio Grande Village store at a nearby park campground, recalls many Mexican residents crossing the river to pick up groceries and other necessities.
"We're their supply," Martin said. "They don't have any electricity over there. So they would come here and buy frozen chicken, cake mixes and things that they couldn't get over there."
Martin tried to stock food items Boquillas del Carmen residents wanted, such as eggs and big sacks of beans.
"After the border closed, well, I got rid of most of my food and went back to gifts because I wasn't making any money," Martin said. He estimated about 40 percent of the store's revenue came from Boquillas residents.
Few have risked crossing to the store since. "If they get caught over here they get shipped off," he said. "They get deported all the way to Ojinaga and then they've got to find their way home. It's not really worth it."
Still, most days some Boquillas del Carmen residents wade across the river a short distance downstream of the old crossing and scramble up to a paved overlook perched high above the river.
On boulders near the parking spots they lay out painted walking sticks, scorpions and roadrunners crafted from copper wire and colorful beads. Each craftsman's work occupies a different rock and operates on the honor system with the hope tourists will drop four or five dollars in their jar.
"Sometimes we don't sell anything," said Boquillas del Carmen resident Guillermo Gonzalez Diaz. "Sometimes we sell one." And other times authorities confiscate everything.
Gonzalez, a 34-year-old father of three, described his town as "very sad, very hard" and said there was no work. Without access to the Rio Grande Village store, residents depend on a bus that runs once a week to Melchor Muzquiz, a larger town about 150 miles away, for supplies.
A small military presence protects the town from the drug-related violence that has engulfed other Mexican border towns. Now with news of the port of entry, residents are already making plans for restaurants and shops, he said.
"When it closed nobody crossed and everything went downhill. People began to leave," he said. "Now people are going to return."[/quote]
What a bad, bad idea.
This won't end very well if they open one.
[QUOTE=Ratboy14;33680075]This won't end very well if they open one.[/QUOTE]
I think they forgot about Juarez.
Get out of the Middle East and get into Mexico
That country is fucked, and it's on your doorstep
Liberate mexico.
It's time for a Latin Spring.
It's time for Occupy Mexico.
How about we reform our archaic drug and immigration laws and this sort of thing won't be a problem.
[QUOTE=Contag;33680096]Get out of the Middle East and get into Mexico
That country is fucked, and it's on your doorstep[/QUOTE]
Yeah American "intervention" in the middle east really made it better over there
End the fucking war on drugs and watch Mexico begin to improve on its own as the cartels die
It's funny because all border crossing we have in Canada here going into the US are manned, and all US to Canada are built to look like the US has a massive cock and needs to stab it in your face. Why would you have an unmanned crossing into a country that is a massive exporter of illegal substances? Fuckin' morons.
For a second I thought the title meant that the US was sending a robotic expedition through the border to Mexico. [img]http://sae.tweek.us/static/images/emoticons/emot-psyduck.gif[/img]
-uneducated snip-
[QUOTE=RoflKawpter;33680252]It's funny because all border crossing we have in Canada here going into the US are manned, and all US to Canada are built to look like the US has a massive cock and needs to stab it in your face. Why would you have an unmanned crossing into a country that is a massive exporter of illegal substances? Fuckin' morons.[/QUOTE]
The problem is not Mexico exporting drugs, the problem is the US buys drugs. People here want to get high, they like getting high, and they will pay good money to get high. You can't blame suppliers for filling that demand. Making the drugs illegal only drives the price up, making the profits that much higher, making violence necessary as people fight over the market.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;33680250]Yeah American "intervention" in the middle east really made it better over there
End the fucking war on drugs and watch Mexico begin to improve on its own as the cartels die[/QUOTE]
I know it's hard to remember after the last decade of clusterfuck, but conflict doesn't necessarily have to be 'bomb everything' and 'kill everyone'.
War on drugs is essentially fuck over latin america when we please (and our own population)
Sometimes I feel like we focus too much on the techno dick waving.
The customs agent is "at least 100 miles away". Fucking why?
I more obvious example is the drones in Iraq. Every time they're mentioned it's brought up that the drone operators are in a comfortable room on the other end of the Earth. Why? Surely there's a closer location. Again, I feel it's "Hey guys look whatt we can do!!"
[QUOTE=GameDev;33680294]Wouldn't legalizing marijuana eliminate most drug cartels? They make their money importing it into America, which if it was legalized it would pretty much run the drug cartels out of business since it could be locally grown.[/QUOTE]
It's not just marijuana. There is also cocaine (the big money maker) and a host of other drugs.
[QUOTE=GameDev;33680294]Wouldn't legalizing marijuana eliminate most drug cartels? They make their money importing it into America, which if it was legalized it would pretty much run the drug cartels out of business since it could be locally grown.[/QUOTE]
Drugs that Cartels have sold:
Cocaine
Marijuana
Heroin
A whole slew of homemade goodies
Things that the Cartel does to make money:
Hits
Protection
Threats
Bribes
Robberies
Online Theft
Ransoms
Money Laundering
Human Trafficking
It's not just the Leaf dude.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;33680250]
End the fucking war on drugs and watch Mexico begin to improve on its own as the cartels die[/QUOTE]
I think if you legalized drugs you'd push Mexico over the edge
It'd probably start to improve after the country implodes though
[QUOTE=Contag;33680709]I think if you legalized drugs you'd push Mexico over the edge
It'd probably start to improve after the country implodes though[/QUOTE]
better that then the country just continually going down the drain with no hope of improvement in sight
I wonder if the cartels could invade the U.S.
[QUOTE=Lachz0r;33680758]better that then the country just continually going down the drain with no hope of improvement in sight[/QUOTE]
Actually, believe it or not, the country is improving. The cartels are slowly being pushed back with each crackdown or arrest. A few years ago it was [B]worse[/B] than it is today in terms of territory owned by the cartels.
[QUOTE=Contag;33680096]Get out of the Middle East and get into Mexico
That country is fucked, and it's on your doorstep[/QUOTE]
But they don't have any oil!
It would be interesting to see what would happen if the USA decided to pull out of the middle east and roll into Mexico but it would probably end up as a pointless waste of life.
i don't see the issue with it they seem to know what they are doing.
I wonder if Mexico would allow us to expand our borders south a little bit.
We take care of the Cartels, and create some interesting jobs in the process.
It'll be like the 1800's all over again (with more guns 'n' drugs).
[QUOTE=teslacoil;33681698]I wonder if Mexico would allow us to expand our borders south a little bit.
We take care of the Cartels, and create some interesting jobs in the process.
It'll be like the 1800's all over again (with more guns 'n' drugs).[/QUOTE]
No.
[QUOTE=faze;33681724]No.[/QUOTE]
What's wrong with "spreading democracy" and "freeing" some Mexicans?
Even with my law enforcement background and work in corrections I can easily admit (Maybe wouldn't get me to a few years ago) that decriminalization of drugs (at least certain types) will only benefit this country. The war on drugs has taken so much life, money, and destabilized an entire country. People are going to do drugs if they're legal or not, so make them legal. That way it can be taxed and regulated much like alcohol. Plus studies/statistics have showed over time the use of drugs and drug related crimes go down drastically after legalization.
That being said we will always have gangs, but it will still destroy a lot of them and weaken some. Most gangs have gained strength though drug trafficking and crimes related to drugs. It will free up much of the prison system, instead of being locked up in jail or prison for a drug related crime issue a court order rehab for anything drug related as to crime. The person pays for it, not the state.
I could go on, but as a former officer I think only good could come from legalizing certain types of drugs. Take the power way from criminals though smart legislation.
[QUOTE=teslacoil;33681751]What's wrong with "spreading democracy" and "freeing" some Mexicans?[/QUOTE]
Uh, i know you're more then likely being sarcastic but you have seen what violence or retaliation against these cartels do. It causes them to hit 10 times harder and the results are horrifying. Plus the US practically helped create this problem.
[QUOTE=MR-X;33681819]
Uh, i know you're more then likely being sarcastic but you have seen what violence or retaliation against these cartels do. It causes them to hit 10 times harder and the results are horrifying. Plus the US practically helped create this problem.[/QUOTE]
Compared to the US and what it has done over the last 150 years, the cartels look like kids with water pistols.
[editline]12th December 2011[/editline]
The States could absolutely crush the cartels, if that were a priority.
[QUOTE=Hidole555;33680843]Actually, believe it or not, the country is improving. The cartels are slowly being pushed back with each crackdown or arrest. A few years ago it was [B]worse[/B] than it is today in terms of territory owned by the cartels.[/QUOTE]
really? i thought that the drug crime rate and regular crime rate was like, far higher now than it was before?
I live in Texas. God damnit.
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