So Much For A Fence Won't Work

This will likely be interpreted different ways. Some will suggest it displays the futility of fencing along the border. Others will say it proves their worth, expanding the battle against illegal immigration on a different front. The guy paddling the surfboard North with a batch of Pot on his back must have been high!

But Commander Pearce and other officials in the Department of Homeland Security say those sporadic efforts have accelerated to unprecedented levels recently — a doubling in the number of illegal immigrants — more than 300 in the last two years — caught on boats or beaches and a sevenfold increase in maritime drug seizures, principally several thousand pounds of marijuana.

The authorities have taken note that the increase coincides with the near completion of new, more fortified border fencing along a 14-mile stretch from the ocean inland.

New smuggling rings have also emerged, operating out of beach towns south of the border and islands off the Mexican coast, convincing migrants that the passage is safe and the ocean too wide open for maritime law enforcement to catch them.

A recent patrol with the Coast Guard showed they may have a point.

All night and into the morning, the Coast Guard cutter Petrel dashed across the seas looking for suspect boats. A tip that a suspect boat was due to pass miles off the coast around 1 a.m. sent the cutter, nearly all of its lights off to avoid detection, searching by the faint glow of a half moon. The boat was not found.

Later, just after 4 a.m., a radar sweep picked up two boats moving quickly south, prompting the crew to cut off the classical music wafting from overhead speakers on a bridge lighted only by navigation monitors.

As the roaring engines sent the cutter crashing over swells for more than 20 minutes after the boats were first noticed, the crew could see the boats speeding without their lights on.

A boarding team mobilized with body armor and rifles and raced in a small craft from the cutter to check out the boats. Just early-morning fishing, said the people on the boats, who insisted they did not realize their lights were off. With no evidence of contraband, they were let go.

But Chief Petty Officer Gary Auslam, in charge on this watch, had his doubts as he watched the boats quickly motor on. Gunrunners bringing weapons from the United States move swiftly.

“Boy, they got out of here pretty quick, didn’t they?” Chief Auslam said, gazing out the bridge.

Comments

[KingShamus]

Pushing drug traffickers into the ocean has to be harder on them than just having coyotes run drug-laden immigrants accross the border. It probably costs the narco-dealers more resources going across the water (time, money, supplies, etc.) than running dope by land.

I happen to think this is a side benefit to a beefed-up border fence, but a nice side benefit nonetheless.

[Alex]

Yeah and hopefully once in awhile their boat capsizes and the Coast Guard "misses" it.

[Alistair]

Gun-runners bringing weapons from the United States? Oh yeah, that's the most obvious explanation. Two boats moving quickly south means that they had dropped off their cargo of people or drugs in the US already, and were returning to Mexico empty. The reasoning in the report about gun-running doesn't make sense, but for idiot reporters it's more important to push their agenda instead of relaying facts.