More Trouble from Vincente Fox

Dubya's "good friend" screws us---again:

When the Drug Enforcement Administration announced in July that Mexico has overtaken Colombia as the number one importer of illegal drugs into the U.S., it exposed another, sometimes discounted threat posed by a lax immigration policy. Certain areas of our country are becoming awash in drugs at levels that surpass even the cocaine heydays of the eighties. Only this time around, the traffickers are not distant cartels who try to avoid the attention of U.S. law enforcement but brutal neighbors who respect neither American citizenship nor American badges. And they are literally knocking down our doors.

Most of those groups lobbying for tougher immigration enforcement bolster their position by arguing that it is not simply drug smuggling that concerns them but terrorist smuggling as well. And while that is, and must be, the Bush administration's primary concern, such reasoning implies that stopping violent cartels along the border is not reason enough to enforce our immigration laws. But anyone paying attention to the activities of Mexican drug gangs knows that even without the specter of terrorism, traffickers pose a serious enough threat to American safety to warrant a border crackdown.

According to DEA officials, Mexican drug cartels now control 11 of the 13 largest drug markets in the country and wield more influence over our illicit drug trade than any other group. DEA reports show that in 2004, 92 percent of the cocaine in the U.S. came through the U.S.-Mexican border, up 15 percent from 2003. They also show that methamphetamine seizure at the border is up 74% since 2001.

These numbers demonstrate the futility of any drug policy that doesn't take into account America's porous border problem. Any laws that Congress or the states enact to curb local production of meth, such as busting up meth labs and moving ephedrine-containing cold medicines behind the counter, is undermined by the burgeoning business of Mexico's super labs. Restricting access to meth-making chemicals on our side of the Rio Grande has simply resulted in U.S. cities flooded with Mexican-made meth -- which is stronger, cheaper, and more addictive than its American counterpart.

Corrupt Mexican officials aid the drug gangs, when they aren't full-fledged members themselves. Vincente Fox, as usual, does nothing.

If there is a more corrupt country in this hemisphere than Mexico, I'm not aware of it.

It's about time President Bush dropped the rose-colored glasses.