[Baltimore Sun] Carroll County sheriff: What I learned from a trip to the southern border | GUEST COMMENTARY
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Like most Americans, I’ve questioned how issues at the southern border affect crime and the quality of life for the citizens in my county and in other states far from the border. How can what’s happening in McAllen, Texas, affect the lives of Americans in Westminster, Maryland, more than 1,700 miles away? But after almost 36 years in law enforcement, I’ve gained a different perspective than most when it comes to border security and how it affects crime, including the public health crisis of heroin and fentanyl addiction.
Last month, I took advantage of an opportunity to visit McAllen, Texas, and Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector. During a three-day visit, a group of 75 public officials from 20 different states including sheriffs, state senators, state delegates and other policymakers received briefings from a diverse group including Border Patrol leadership, Texas state troopers and border officials, neighboring border state representatives, non-government organizations (NGOs) advocating for migrants, ranchers and other local citizens affected by illegal border crossings. We also had the opportunity to visit border points of entry and border wall sections. We observed operations from Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) helicopters and patrol boats along the Rio Grande. I’m no border expert, but after this trip, it was abundantly clear that we have a border security issue that has turned into a manmade humanitarian and criminal crisis.
After touring and speaking with a family of Cuban migrants being processed by an NGO, it was clear that border states are overwhelmed and struggling to combat the issue. While visiting border locations I noticed portions of the border wall were missing, not because the cartel took them down but because funding was cut before completion. These portions, I learned, are where cartel “coyotes” drop off migrants to enter the United States. This is also where cartel drug runners backpack into our country. I learned that high-definition cameras along the valley haven’t been working for over a year because of procurement issues and the COVID-19 era excuse of “supply-chain issues.”
In an effort to slow illegal crossings, Texas officials have brought in other state police agencies to support Texas DPS troopers. While I was there, I saw many Florida highway troopers and National Guard troops. We received additional briefings from local news organizations that travel alongside caravans migrating from South America. These organizations showed us footage and interviews of migrants making their way into North America through the Darien Gap, where women are given what could only be described as rape kits by NGOs that know they will likely be sexually assaulted during their trip north.
We saw footage of migrants discarding their documentation at the border so U.S. officials couldn’t properly identify them, including criminals from other countries. These aren’t just a few IDs tossed on the ground — it’s more like a few hundred thousand, because the identification document fields left at the border would rival your local landfill. Ironically, I had to show my identification to get into the NGO I visited. NGOs serve migrants in South America before they cross the Darien Gap and in the United States just as they cross the border into McAllen, Texas. These NGOs are making money hand over fist, and they have an incentive to help migrants complete their long journey because if they make it into the United States, the NGOs are paid good money by the U.S. government to process and transport them. I have no doubt that the people working for these NGOs think they are doing good work, but I have a hard time understanding why anyone would encourage someone to take a trip in which they may well be sexually assaulted or even die.
The amount of drugs, including fentanyl, that the cartels traffick through the border is staggering. Enough people die of fentanyl poisoning in one day in the United States to fill a Boeing 747. What would happen if a Boeing 747 crashed every single day in our county? When two Boeing airplanes did crash, what did the United States and worldwide governments do? They had Boeing ground their Boeing Max planes to figure out how this happened before they could continue flying them, lest any more lives be lost. But when it comes to the fentanyl flowing across our border, we’ve done little to address this crisis and stop the thousands of deaths. All Washington has done is argue about who created the problem, who made it worse, and who is standing in the way of making it better.
I could go on and on about the economic impact uncontrolled migration has on communities along the border and the states that are receiving thousands of migrants. I can tell you what ranchers are experiencing, with damaged property, dead livestock and encounters with violent cartel members trying to get their product (both drugs and humans) through their ranches. We can discuss the burden it puts on a school system to try to integrate migrant children into the system when they have little resources to evaluate a child’s level of education or even their real age or date of birth.
If you are being told by a politician or government official that everything is okay at the border and there’s nothing to see there, you are being lied to. If you are being told that what happens at the border has no effect on you, you are being lied to. If you are being told that NGOs are not making profits from this crisis, you are being lied to. Ignorance is bliss, and the politicians who are lying to you have likely never visited the border or spoken to anyone along the border affected by these issues. If they paid a visit to McAllen, Texas, or other border communities, they wouldn’t be able to walk away and say there’s nothing to see.
James T. DeWees is the sheriff of Carroll County.
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