The Drug War And Illegal Immigration

Governor Brewer of Arizona is on her xenophobic high horse again. This recent article at CNN was brought to my attention in which she was quoted saying:

“The simple truth is that the majority of human smuggling in our state is under the direction of the drug cartels, which are by definition smuggling drugs,” Brewer’s statement said, according to the Associated Press as reported in the Arizona Republic. “It is common knowledge that Mexican drug cartels have merged human smuggling with drug trafficking.”

Brewer said the “human rights violations that have taken place (by the cartels) victimizing immigrants and their families are abhorrent.”

via Arizona’s Brewer: Most illegal immigrants are ‘drug mules’ – CNN.com.

Yes, you are right Governor the human rights violations and victimizing of immigrants is abhorrent, both from the government of Arizona and from cartels. Let us assume that these outrageous statements about migrants are true for a moment. The government of the United States has declared a drug war in response to the mess it created with prohibition and free trade. The issue would be easily resolved by allowing the free market to function and by ending the prohibition. The need to ‘smuggle’ and hide the products would not be present. The entire accusation relies on the embrace of the power of the state and it’s holy moral crusade. If the issue were the abuse of individual of drug mules why not eliminate that situation and provide a free market to function safely within. This is part of the hypocrisy of the GOP. They claim they want a free market and then restrict markets.

Her claims have no basis in reality:

T.J. Bonner of the National Border Patrol Council told CNN that Brewer’s claims were “clearly not the case.” Bonner said that some undocumented immigrants caught by border patrol agents have drugs on them, and that they sometimes blame pressure from the drug cartels.

But, he said, those claims have little credibility because drug smugglers are typically transporting much larger quantities of drugs. And besides, he said, if what Brewer said were true, there would be many more prosecutions for drug smuggling.

Brewer’s comments, Bonner said, don’t “comport with reality — that’s the nicest way to put it.”