Why are there so many desperate asylum seekers on our southern border? Many cannot find a way to make a living in their native homelands. Most fear they cannot survive the cartel-induced violence and the accompanying political corruption that decimates justice… and hope. In neighboring Mexico, for example, cartels have “convinced” local farmers to “transfer” their avocado and citrus orchards to these criminal organizations… either for free or for chump change. It’s a great money laundering opportunity and an asset base for cartel faithful.
Most probably, if you’ve eaten an avocado from Mexico (most are) recently, you have paid a cartel for that delicious moment. Try getting a reasonable job or farming a productive plot (forget about climate change!) in this environment. How much protection must you pay if you can even keep your farm? Are your sons being force-recruited by local gangs? What exactly gives these cartels and their supporting gangs so much power? Ask Texas Governor Greg Abbott; he actually knows.
“Every year, half a million weapons enter Mexico [and points south] illegally from the U.S., and many of them are military-style weapons that end up in the hands of drug cartels and other violent criminals, said Alejandro Celorio Alcántara, legal adviser of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“‘In addition to prosecuting criminals and seizing guns that are illegally in Mexico, we decided to go to the source of the problem. Like if this were a toxic river, in addition to cleaning the river, we need to go to the source and stop the toxic waste from being dumped at the river,” said … Alcántara, referring to the landmark lawsuit the Mexican government filed against 10 U.S. gun manufacturers in U.S. federal court last summer [in 2021]. It is the first time that a foreign government has sued American gunmakers.
“Mexican officials have said that a significant part of the epidemic of violence and crime that has plagued their nation in recent decades is driven by the illicit traffic of weapons from the U.S. Mexico has restrictive firearms laws, with one gun store in the entire nation and only about 50 permits issued per year. Between 70 to 90 percent of guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico can be traced back to the U.S. Drug cartels, in particular, buy those weapons in the U.S., mostly in Texas or Arizona, and smuggle them across the border.” The Harvard Gazette 2/18/22. By sheer volume, Texas is the main and most obvious source of those smuggled weapons.
Getting a legal gun in Mexico, a constitutionally protected right, requires a background check, proficiency with the selected gun and a psychological profile test… all of which can take well over a year. The owner is retested upon renewal. There is only one legal (and government owned) gun store in the country, in Mexico City. The millions of guns in the hands of cartels and their supporting gangs definitely are not legal.
Even if we could immediately stop the flow of guns (especially the military assault rifles), properly maintained guns can last for decades. The funds that bought all those illegal guns came from drug users, mostly in the United States. With exceptionally lax gun laws, especially in Texas, and a vastly lower level of border inspection for trucks moving south across the border, the supply of guns, from dealers, private owners and gun shows, has been a flood for a very long time.
Writing for the March 10th Los Angeles Times, Ieva Jusionyte, associate professor of international security and anthropology at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, adds: “When President Biden and former President Trump visited Texas at the end of February, each spoke about migration and border security. Biden called for restricting asylum. Trump engaged in fear-mongering, blaming migrants for crime. But neither mentioned one of the main reasons the border has drawn so many migrants and asylum seekers — the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico.
“This link between our guns and the people who seek safety at the border is particularly clear in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott’s hard-line approach to stopping migrants from crossing completely ignores the state’s role as a main source of weapons for criminal groups and violence in Mexico, which is a result of its loose gun regulations. It’s no wonder that Mexicans are the largest national group among the hundreds of thousands who try to cross the U.S. southern border each year.
“Since I began volunteering in 2015 at a migrant aid clinic in Nogales, Mexico, I have met the men, women and children who make up these statistics. Various presidents and Congresses have handed down a hodgepodge of policies intended to solve the perpetual crisis on the border, but the reasons people try to escape Mexico and the difficulties they encounter on their journeys have not changed in any meaningful way.
“At the clinic, mothers and fathers told us why they had to flee. Somebody’s brother was murdered. Somebody’s cousin was kidnapped. Somebody else could no longer pay extortion fees. These migrants were fleeing insecurity rather than poverty, although the two often overlapped. Criminal violence is a problem throughout Mexico. In 2023, more than 110,000 Mexicans were officially listed as disappeared. Close to 90% of all crimes are never reported and 9 in 10 homicides go unpunished. In some parts of the country, law enforcement works with organized crime groups. The families I met did not have an option to go to the police. They packed what they could carry, hoping to find safety once they crossed the border.
“It’s not only people that are affected by the proliferation of guns. The criminal organizations forcing families to flee are often also running the Mexican drug trade. When fentanyl is smuggled across the border, usually through ports of entry and often by U.S. citizens, it wreaks havoc in our communities. But the drugs would not be coming north in such large numbers if not for our guns flowing south.”
In a nation where the average voter in 2024 prefers to lay blame rather than take responsibility for obvious serious problems, it’s major advantage to MAGA and the blame-meister, Donald Trump. Truth can be hard to take, but problems do not get solved without it. Gregg Abbott. a callous, heartless, irresponsible MAGA-in-Chief, deserves massive blame, not asylum seekers.
I’m Peter Dekom, and from a state that exonerated the 2022 Texas police who sat on their hands as an angry and deranged killer used an AR-15 to kill 19 students and two teachers, while 17 others were injured but survived, the unwillingness to apply reasonable gun control and take responsibility for mounting gun-related homicide from Texas sourced guns is no surprise.
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