Fueling violence along the southwest border: what more can be done to protect the citizens of the United States and Mexico from firearms trafficking.

• Author: Miller, Benjamin Kai

1. INTRODUCTION II. BACKGROUND INFORMATION A. Victim accounts B. Where does the blame fall? C. Factors that led to the U.S.-Mexico border becoming a war zone III. ANALYSIS A. Why the policy method of incrementalism is the best approach for firearms trafficking laws B. How are Mexico and the United States currently responding to these issues? C. What more can be done? IV. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION

   Violence is increasing along the southwest border between Mexico and the United States. (1) One reason for the elevated violence is high levels of firearms trafficking combined with rival drug cartels and gangs competing for prime trade routes between our two countries. (2) This is a complex issue that not only involves firearms and narcotics, but also illegal immigration. (3) Any hope for a solution will require the cooperation and involvement of all levels of government on both sides of the border. (4) This Comment addresses the inadequacy of current bilateral measures and proposes solutions that will attack the problem from the perspective of stopping the flow of illegal firearms from the United States into Mexico.

   Section II focuses on the current state of affairs in border towns in both countries and addresses the major factors that led to the increase in violence. Section III introduces and compares the theories of incrementalism and comprehensive rationality as they relate to legislative reform and addresses how both Mexico and the United States are responding to these issues. (5) More specifically, this section discusses recent attempts at cooperation by the governments of the two countries, responses to these issues by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and proposed U.S. legislation in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Finally, Section III offers ideas at how the United States can improve its efforts at reducing firearms trafficking to Mexico. The last section proposes legislative reforms along with expanding the options that the ATF has at its disposal. The end result will be to cut firearms trafficking off at the source.

2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

   [In Miguel Aleman, Mexico]--Hit men, [with] pistols tucked in their pants and walkie-talkies strapped to their belts, move freely in this city of sorghum farmers and cattle ranchers, dropping off their ostrich-skin boots with shoeshine boys in the city's plaza and stopping at local bars for a beer ... In this city of 35,000 across from Roma, Texas, hit men are easily identified by their bulletproof pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. The traffickers have lookouts at every entrance to the city and informants on bicycles looking for anyone suspicious, townspeople say. They will photograph newcomers, including reporters, and question strangers. The traffickers "speed through the street, drive against traffic and run red lights. But here, no one says anything to them," said a businessman who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. "Here, they are the law." (6) Over 9,000 people have been killed in the drug wars along the southwest border of the U.S. and Mexico between 2007 and 2009, with at least 1,000 of the deaths occurring in 2009 alone. (7) No one in a Texas, Arizona, or California border town is safe from the widespread violence. (8) The increase in violence is a direct result of rival drug cartels competing for dominance of valuable smuggling routes into the United States. (9) Drug cartel hit men assassinate members of Mexico's elite state police force, kidnap large groups of people for ransom money, and rape and beat women at will. (10)

   Illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border should not be news to anyone. (11) However, what is new along the border is the increasing violence on both sides and the flow of firearms into Mexico. (12) The United States sustains a demand for narcotics and labor to which Mexico responds, supplying both workers and drugs. (13) This influx of narcotics and immigrants across the border has created opportunities for organized crime as well as a demand for firearms that the United States is more than willing to satisfy. (14)

   1. Victim accounts

      Border violence spans all levels of socioeconomic status. (15) In the summer of 2008, Alexia Moreno, her cousin, and a friend were walking near Alexia's home in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, when several men forced them into an SUV. (16) The men who picked them up were on their way to a gun battle with a rival trafficking gang and needed the girls to use as leverage and as human shields. (17) Almost immediately after kidnapping them, the gun battle began. (18) Alexia was shot in the head within minutes as she attempted to seek cover in the back seat of the vehicle, while the other two girls were lucky enough to survive by escaping when the vehicle crashed. (19) Not only does Alexia's family have to accept the prospect of living without her, but at her funeral, her father had to publicly state that he was in no way involved with the drug cartels. (20) In Mexico, people assume that when you are victimized by cartel violence you are involved in some way. (21) This widely held view is fueled by the common practice of reporters and media sources refusing to explain why a person was victimized or who the probable suspects are. (22)

      The majority of Mexican news sources only publish the most basic facts of crimes. (23) "The journalists who ordinarily would report on such violence have been silenced by cartel operatives who kidnap reporters and repeatedly phone in threats to newsrooms." (24) For example, in 2004, the editor of El Manana newspaper was murdered. (25) The newspaper responded by ceasing its reporting of drug cartel crimes in the hopes that no other attacks would occur. (26) Unfortunately, cartel enforcers armed with assault rifles and grenades ambushed its newspaper offices despite the newspaper's decision to forego reporting on the cartels. (27)

      Furthermore, the general public is not only kept in the dark about the true nature of innocent victims of cartel violence, but also is unaware that journalists are being kidnapped and media stations threatened to keep them from reporting on incidents. (28) This further fuels speculation about victims being involved in organized crime. (29) This speculation reinforces the power and control that the cartels have over the communities for which they are competing. (30)

      The cartels and their enforcer gangs dominate local communities by controlling media outlets and by threatening and assassinating law enforcement officials. (31) The most infamous killing to date occurred in 2005 in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where the Gulf Cartel and its enforcers, the Zetas, have current dominance. (32) The murder was that of the Nuevo Laredo police chief, Alejandro Dominguez. (33) Mr. Dominguez was gunned down in broad daylight, only a few hours after he had taken office. (34) Dominguez' successor subsequently resigned-citing stress--leaving the city without a police chief for almost one year. (35)

      In Juarez, the top police commander resigned and fled after high-ranking police officers and a dozen regular officers under him were murdered after being placed on a cartel hit list. (36) The Juarez Cartel, which controls one of the primary drug trafficking routes into the United States via El Paso, publicly posts its hit list in an effort to intimidate police officers to quit. (37)

      Unfortunately, these law enforcement killings are not unique to Texas. (38) The Sinaloa and Juarez Cartels are competing for trade routes that stretch from El Paso, TX to Nogales, AZ. (39) During the early months of summer 2008, four Mexican police officers were killed just south of the Arizona border. (40) Shortly after these killings, a high-ranking police commander of the Policia Estatal Investigadora was murdered in the same area. (41) The police officials were attacked with AK-47 assault rifles and several of them were ultimately decapitated. (42)

      U.S. Border Patrol agents are likewise seeing an increase in attacks, with incidents rising to nearly three a day in 2008. (43) More specifically, the total number of Border Patrol agents attacked in a ten month period in 2008 was over two hundred more than the same ten month period in 2006. (44) Border Patrol agents are being attacked with assault rifles, Molotov cocktails, concrete slabs, bottles, and rocks. (45)

      Along with bystanders, police, and government officials, some members of the cartels or their enforcer gangs can also be characterized as victims. (46) Rosalio Reta, a Houston native, began traveling to Nuevo Laredo when he was thirteen to partake in the nightclub scene where entrance and drinking age limits are either nonexistent or unenforced. (47) Reta was impressed by youth his own age throwing money around and driving expensive cars. (48)

      Reta began moving weapons across the border, and after helping to break a cartel leader out of a Mexican prison, he was promoted to hit man. (49) At age eighteen, Reta pleaded guilty to murder for hire and received a forty-year sentence. (50) Reta is awaiting a second trial where he is accused of slaying a man in his car while the victim's family watched nearby. (51)

      Notwithstanding the volume of victims that are choosing to live along the border, a great many of the victims are Mexican immigrants in search of jobs and greater opportunity in the United States. (52) FBI Director Robert Mueller has even suggested that "human smuggling" is one of the primary factors that are generating violence along the borders. (53) Hundreds of Mexicans have been kidnapped from the Nuevo Laredo area alone in the last few years as cartels find new ways to finance their illicit activities. (54) Since controlling a smuggling route includes both the right to traffic narcotics and humans, rival cartels are hijacking vehicles carrying both drugs and immigrants to assert their dominance and claim to a territory. (55)

      In Phoenix...