Mexican drug cartels recruiting Texas children

[NateR]

http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-drug-c...173402030.html

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Texas law enforcement officials say several Mexican drug cartels are luring youngsters as young as 11 to work in their smuggling operations.

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told Reuters the drug gangs have a chilling name for the young Texans lured into their operations.

"They call them 'the expendables,'" he said.

McCraw said his investigators have evidence six Mexican drug gangs -- including the violent Zetas -- have "command and control centers" in Texas actively recruiting children for their operations, attracting them with what appears to be "easy money" for doing simple tasks.

"Cartels would pay kids $50 just for them to move a vehicle from one position to another position, which allows the cartel to keep it under surveillance to see if law enforcement has it under surveillance," he said.

"Of course, once you're hooked up with them, there's consequences."

McCraw said 25 minors have been arrested in one Texas border county alone in the past year for running drugs, acting as lookouts, or doing other work for organized Mexican drug gangs. The cartels are now fanning out, he said, and have operations in all major Texas cities.

This month, "we made an arrest of a 12-year-old boy who was in a stolen pickup truck with 800 pounds of marijuana," he said. "So they do recruit our kids."

McCraw says the state of Texas is joining a program initiated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection called "Operation Detour," in which law enforcement officers meet with children and their parents in schools and at community centers to warn them about the dangers of what appears to be the easy money the Mexican drug gangs offer.

Law enforcement officers say children are less likely to be suspects than adults, are easily manipulated by relatively small sums of money, and face less severe penalties than adults if arrested.

Last month, Texas officials released a report indicating Mexico-based drug gangs are intent on creating a "sanitary zone" on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, and are "intimidating landowners" in south Texas into allowing them to use their property as "permanent bases" for drug smuggling activity.

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Jerry Norton)

But of course, we don't need to seal off or defend our borders, there's no danger from Mexico.

[Tyburn]

Originally Posted by NateR

http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-drug-c...173402030.html



But of course, we don't need to seal off or defend our borders, there's no danger from Mexico.

You need a proper Boarder...I was horrified when I heard the United States doesnt actually have a southern boarder...

I'm sorry to say...but you need a fortified wall, with manned check points....your country only has itself to blame with the immigration because there is nothing stopping those migrants...not wall, no barrier, nothing but sometimes a crossable river...sometimes maybe a signpost...

How The United States ever managed when Mexico was a Monarchy and a collonial power I cant fathom...

I remember that there was NOTHING marking the boarders between States...which by your constitution should be considered soverignties in their own rights...but you can walk across a bridge from Illinois into Iowa...there is no passport check...no wall...nothing...the same between Illinois and Missouri...if you had any trouble understanding American States you might not even know where one state ends and another begins....

thats just about acceptable...but to have that relationship with Mexico...is not.

Did you know...there is still a wall between England and Scotland to this day...we have let it fall into disrepair...although there IS official boarder crossings....its called Hadrians wall...it was made by the Roman Legions when they decided that the Picts were simply too much for them...so they built a wall across the entire country and declaired it the end of the world

if the Scotts move for a Referendum....we'll be doing it again shortly

[NateR]

Not only do we need a fortified wall with manned checkpoints and helicopter patrols policing the border, I think we also need a 5-mile wide "demilitarized zone" between us and Mexico, like what exists between North and South Korea. Our military would have authorization to use deadly force in defending that zone from illegal entry.

[Tyburn]

Originally Posted by NateR

Not only do we need a fortified wall with manned checkpoints and helicopter patrols policing the border, I think we also need a 5-mile wide "demilitarized zone" between us and Mexico, like what exists between North and South Korea. Our military would have authorization to use deadly force in defending that zone from illegal entry.

It has to be said that many landlocked countries have walls....Demilitarized Zones may not work so well with the US...due to the vast length of the boarder...which is why what you really need is a solid wall, preferably ten to twenty foot high...and with the ability to walk across the wall. The manned checkpoints need to be at wherever there is a gate...which would ONLY be at a proper boarder control point.

this wall has to go through any lake or river in its path, and it has to go out to sea as far as a Pier on both sides. The Coast Guard should be put in charge of creating two bases at either side...and the US Army needs to provide the infantry for the Wall Patrols which should take place 24/7. Homeland Security need to staff the gates like they would an airport or a shipping port....

I would suggest doing Demilitarized Zones perhaps just around the gates themselves...perhaps a mile in each direction around the gates

...I know it sounds bad...but you should have something like this in the North also...the Great Lakes are useful because they are impassable in a way a River is not....but you should still have some form of solid wall along the land boarders...just because...its not a matter of being hostile towards your neighbours...its about your own integrity and your own soverignty and controlling what enters and leaves your lands.

I dont know how much it would cost...but thats what I would do...think of all the construction jobs it would create who needs the Jobs Act? just have a mamouth task like that and get your whole nation involved in its construction...

Mexico would scream blue murder...it would be hillarious

Originally Posted by NateR

Not only do we need a fortified wall with manned checkpoints and helicopter patrols policing the border, I think we also need a 5-mile wide "demilitarized zone" between us and Mexico, like what exists between North and South Korea. Our military would have authorization to use deadly force in defending that zone from illegal entry.

i've said this before and i'll say it again .. when you have guys like GWB (and probably obama, although i haven't heard him say it) saying that mexico is US' greatest NA ally, blah blah people will say you are going to send a wrong message building a wall .. i think that is the only way to combat illegal immigration ... but then again, you have the worlds longest ungaurded international border to the north of you with no imminent problems ...

Originally Posted by rearnakedchoke

i've said this before and i'll say it again .. when you have guys like GWB (and probably obama, although i haven't heard him say it) saying that mexico is US' greatest NA ally, blah blah people will say you are going to send a wrong message building a wall .. i think that is the only way to combat illegal immigration ... but then again, you have the worlds longest ungaurded international border to the north of you with no imminent problems ...

The northern border isn't a problem because Canada isn't a nation of corrupt criminals running the government. People aren't desperate to flee Canada. It's also not a drug haven with a customer base to the south.

[NateR]

Originally Posted by rearnakedchoke

i've said this before and i'll say it again .. when you have guys like GWB (and probably obama, although i haven't heard him say it) saying that mexico is US' greatest NA ally, blah blah people will say you are going to send a wrong message building a wall .. i think that is the only way to combat illegal immigration ... but then again, you have the worlds longest ungaurded international border to the north of you with no imminent problems ...

Canada and the US are 1st world nations. Mexico, for all intents and purposes, is a 3rd world nation. The southern border of the United States is the only border in the entire world that is shared by both a 1st world and a 3rd world nation.

That's why the border between the US and Mexico is a problem and the border between the US and Canada is not.