I have often referenced the crimes government/law enforcement officials commit that somehow are not as important as the crime of stepping across a man-made boundary, and i have also mentioned the former who have been caught being involved in drug-running across the border. Yet again has a story come out about this, yet immigrants still bear the brunt of being stereotyped as drug-runners. Sure, there are some, but they also get punished much worse, and they're not backed by authority, arms, and money to the extent that national guardsmen, for example, are.
In addition, drug smuggling is one of the reasons for more border security, including a fence that divides indigenous land/communities and destroys the environment. Obviously immigrants are not the only ones to blame.
Brenda Norrell, who i have discovered is a great journalist covering many border-related stories, covered the most recent story of cocaine runners in her article, Arizona's 'Cokeheads' the National Guard.
There were so many Arizona National Guardsmen eager to run cocaine from the border of Arizona and Mexico to Tucson and Phoenix, that the FBI had to shut down its sting, Operation Lively Green....
The Guardsmen were not the only soldiers and law enforcement officials smuggling cocaine. During sentencing, nearly 100 others emerged, ranging from a Nogales police officer and a prison guard to US Air Force squadsmen at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson patrolling the border by air and smuggling cocaine.
Which brings us to the present, and the fact that Arizona National Guardsmen are helping build the border wall on the Tohono O'odham Nation. While an Indigenous Peoples' delegation was at the border on Tohono O'odham land, near San Miguel, on Nov. 8, 2007, the National Guardsmen were part of the crew building the wall.
Please also read my post called The Drug-Smuggler Stereotype.
