How Many Deaths Before Obama Takes Border Security Seriously

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
Friday, August 27, 2010

The shocking discovery of 72 murdered Hispanic migrants on a ranch just south of the U.S. border should be a wakeup call to all Americans that the security of our beloved nation begins at home.

Here in Arizona we have seen firsthand the bloody consequences of the crime and violence being imported by criminal aliens across our borders. Peaceful Phoenix has been transformed into the kidnapping capital of America.

A cadre of dedicated state and local officials has attempted to quell the violence. The result has been to watch these local leaders be sued, investigated and harassed by the police powers of the Obama administration.

When will this insanity end?

The migration of farm workers in the 1950s and 60s was transformed into a migration of construction workers, maids and restaurant workers in the 1970s and 80s. But the character of the immigration has changed again, and we ignore these changes at our peril.

Criminal gangs now control the border. Drugs, human trafficking, robbery, extortion and smuggling are profitable motivators escalating violence on both sides of the border.

Until the borderlands of the American Southwest are policed and under the control of authorities, these inexplicably brutal conditions will persist. The drug cartels must be destroyed, and the only way to accomplish this is with serious intervention, manpower and high-tech weaponry.

Obama and his minions ignore the brutality, the pain, the suffering and the long-term consequences of allowing these gangs safe haven in the hopes of scoring political points with immigrant voters.

This issue isn't about the civil rights of migrants -- this issue is about keeping all Americans safe regardless of nation of origin.

This massacre only came to light because a wounded Ecuadorean escaped. With a bullet wound in his neck he struggled to a nearby highway to find a Mexican military roadblock. He told authorities that the migrants' abductors identified themselves as Zetas. Zetas are a drug gang whose control of parts of Mexico is so brutal even many Mexicans avoid traveling on public highways near their territory.

Amnesty International has called the plight of the migrants crossing from Mexico to the U.S. a major world crisis. Their report called our border "one of the most dangerous in the world," and said every year an untold number of migrants disappear without a trace.

Mass unmarked graves near the border hold the key to a complete accounting of these horrors.

Now Mexican authorities are trying to determine whether the 72 victims in Tamaulipas were killed at the same time -- and why. We may never know.

The future is becoming clear. If the United States doesn't reverse course and begin to take border security seriously then these gangs will slowly increase their power in the U.S. They are already said to control several U.S. prisons, and neighborhoods in Phoenix and Los Angeles.

The Obama administration's harassment of local and state officials attempting to secure the border must end immediately. Instead, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security should be assisting these duly-elected local officials in the difficult task. Everyone must work together.

Violence must be met with the swift hand of justice. If we use fences, armed drones and patrols to secure the boarder of Iraq, we need to use that same technology and knowhow on our own border.

The primary objective of the United States Government is to protect our citizens from foreign enemies. These criminal gangs are foreign enemies is every sense.