Border Security, National Security, and Mexico

On Monday, the White House stated that it plans to deploy 1,200 National Guard soldiers along the southwest border of the United States to protect and defend against increasing drug cartel violence in northern Mexico. These troops will "complement the unprecedented resources and additional efforts already devoted by this administration to securing the Southwest border." However, according to the governors of Arizona and Texas, whose states are most impacted by the porous border, this number is only a fourth of what it needs to be.

Since 2006, when Mexican President Félipe Caldéron began cracking down on drug cartels, there have been 25,500 deaths related to drug trafficking. Most of this violence has occurred along the northern border of Mexico, where drug cartels fight for control of lucrative inroads into the United States.

While the violence has generally been aimed at other gangs, traffickers, and police, the drug cartels are showing an increased willingness to directly challenge government officials. The recent assassination of the favored gubernational candidate of Tamaulipas, Rodolfo Torre, is evidence of growing boldness of the drug cartels in their confrontation of the government. His murder is the highest governmental level assassination since President Félipe Caldéron declared war on drug cartels in 2006.

The aggressiveness of the drug cartels has manifested itself in other ways as well. A February 2010 National Drug Threat Assessment by the Department of Justice stated that, "Available reporting indicates that some alien smuggling organizations (ASOs) in Mexico specialize in moving special-interest aliens into the United States." Special-interest aliens are illegal immigrants coming from countries known to be breeding grounds for terrorism. In a recent article, Deroy Murdock, a fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, details the passage of many citizens of these "special interest" countries into the United States. Over the last two years alone, 418 citizens of these countries have been apprehended along the border. During the last year, 17 Iranians, seven Sudanese, and two Syrians, all hailing from countries classified as state sponsors of terrorism, were deported.

One military official said, "As the cartels begin to realize the enormous amount of funding that's available in transporting special interest aliens, they'll do more of it. We need to be mindful because this type of human smuggling is a definite threat to security and human smuggling is a billion dollar industry."

According to a 2006 report by the House Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee, terrorists groups such as Hezbollah, use the southwest border as an entry point into the United States. Former chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Michael Braun, stated that Hezbollah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels. They'll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are [smuggling]."

Border security is not just a domestic political issue but a national security issue as well.