Same Song, Nth Verse

While browsing the news this morning, the following headline caught my eye.

28 dead, 700 flee as gang battles hit west Mexico

Fierce fighting among apparent rival drug gangs in western Mexico bloodied one highway with 28 dead, while in a nearby state more than 700 people huddled in shelters after fleeing villages that had become battlegrounds.

Just more cartel violence south of the border, right? Nothing new to see here. Move along, people.

Except for this, tucked away inside the story.

... according to the Norway-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which tracks such figures. It estimates about 230,000 people in Mexico have been driven from their homes, often to stay with relatives or in the United States.

But how do these undocumented democrats illegal aliens get into the U.S.? After all, both DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and obama himself have proclaimed that the border is secure.

Others beg to differ.

Here's the nutshell truth about the situation here: The border towns are relatively safe, thanks to more agents, more money, and better fencing.  In Nogales (AZ) proper, population 20,000, with more than 60 city cops and approximately 800 federal agents now working there, the crime rate has actually dropped.  Nogales also has 18-foot-tall fences running out east and west of town.

The feds base their security boasts on success in the border towns.  But these efforts haven't stopped the illicit traffic, only moved it out into our remotest lands.

Out of sight, out of mind is part of the government's plan.  With the bad guys high up in the mountains and in the canyons, Napolitano and Bersin get the political cover to claim the war is just about won.

Tell that to the folks living in and around the Coronado National Forest west of Nogales.  It has become a modern-day frontier, as drug mules, illegal aliens, and bandits cross the Peck Canyon Smuggling Corridor.

On Dec. 14, Border Patrol Brian Terry was murdered in Peck Canyon when his four-man tactical team got into a firefight with at least five bandits, several armed with AK-47s.

. . .

Consider the Border Patrol's arrest blotter for a single day, April 20, in areas immediately surrounding the Peck Corridor:

*Agents working near Tumacacori arrest three Mexican illegals, seize 119 pounds of marijuana and a .38 caliber revolver.

*Agents working near Amado arrest a Mexican illegal, and seize 465 pounds of marijuana and a MAC-10 machine pistol.

*An Agent working near Three Points seizes a loaded 9mm handgun and ammunition from two marijuana backpacks dropped during a chase of two suspected Mexican illegals.

And that's leaving out any mention of the human skulls that keep turning up. Hit the link for the rest.

And in one final ironic note, one agency of the federal government is prohibiting another from enforcing border security.

For the third time in a few months a federal report exposes how the U.S. government prioritizes environmental preservation over national security by keeping Border Patrol agents out of wildlife refuges that are heavily transited by Mexican drug and human smugglers.

Among them is a popular smugglers’ corridor, the 2,300-acre San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, used by an illegal immigrant who murdered an Arizona rancher last spring. For years, Border Patrol agents have been prohibited by the Interior Department and the U.S. Forest Service from actively patrolling such areas because it threatens natural resources.

Motorized vehicles, road construction and the installation of surveillance structures required to adequately secure the vast areas are forbidden because it could endanger the environment and its wildlife. In the meantime, Mexican drug cartels and human smugglers regularly use the sprawling, unmanned and federally protected land to enter the U.S. The areas have become the path of choice for illicit operations that endanger American lives and, ironically, cause severe environmental damage.

Adding insult to injury, Interior officials charge the Department of Homeland Security millions of dollars for conducting preapproved Border Patrol operations on its land. Since 2007, Homeland Security has paid the Interior Department more than $9 million to mitigate the “environmental damage” of protecting the border.

Got that? Not only is the Border Patrol discouraged from patrolling prime smuggling routes, it has to pay the Dept. of the Interior when it does.

You can't make this stuff up...