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The border looks completely different today than it did just 15 years ago and
it's because of the increasing flow of goods and people across national borders throughout the world.
Specifically on the U.S.-Mexico border you have a confluence of factors,
one of them being that Mexican drug cartels are now in charge of the transporting of ***.
Most of the *** coming into the U.S. used to come through the Caribbean and
because of some U.S. law enforcement efforts to shut down those routes and now we have
most of the *** coming through Mexico and the cartels becoming more powerful and there's more at stake in what they do.
You also have the signing of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994,
which precipitated an increase in the flow of goods, of legal commerce across the borders.
At the same time, when you create the infrastructure for the legal movement of goods,
you're also creating the infrastructure for illegal goods to come through.
And, so, you had a rise in both legal and illegal forms of commerce on the border.
And, finally, you have an increase in migration to the U.S.
I think this has slowed down in the past year or two because of the economic conditions in the United States.
But, until then, what you see is the shutting down of the agriculture industry in Mexico, in many parts of Mexico.
Some people blame NAFTA for this and others don't, but I think everyone is in agreement that the forms of work and
the kind of markets that existed for Mexican farmers are no longer there
and so you have many more people trying to come through the border, both legally and illegally.
On this side of the border, what we've seen is the growing emphasis on border enforcement and
on a specific strategy that the U.S. government had thought would work and that has had serious consequences for the border.
In the mid-1990s what we saw was the creation of Operation Hold The Line in El Paso and Operation Gate Keeper in San Diego.
The idea was that if the U.S. shut down the areas that were most populated along the border,
people would be deterred from crossing because they would not want to cross through
some of the more dangerous parts of the border, such as the Arizona desert.
This has not borne out. What we've seen is that people are trying to cross through other areas.
Since 9/11, you also see a growing emphasis on enforcing the border, on trying to shut it down as much as possible.
You had the creation of the Department of Homeland Security,
a lot of resources sent to the border and an emphasis on enforcement-only approaches.
I think the result is that the groups in Mexico that used to be involved only in the crossing of drugs
have also become involved in the smuggling of people.
You have the criminalization of the border and an increase of organized crime on the border,
which is necessary to try to get some of these goods and people across that cannot cross legally.
So, the result is a lot of violence. And the border communities are shouldering all of this, these effects and responsibilities,
and their voices are not being heard.
The policies are still coming from Austin, from Washington, D.C. and Mexico City.
So, I think we need a better balance of policies that do not put all of the burden on border communities and
we also need to create space for border communities to speak up about their needs.