Obama’s Drug Czar Refuses to Discuss Impact of Unsecured Mexican Border on Drug Use

[waltky]

Mebbe the cartels got to him...

Obama’s Drug Czar Refuses to Discuss Impact of Unsecured Mexican Border on Drug Use in U.S.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 – Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and former Seattle Police Chief, would not say how the spotty security along the southwest border affects his office’s effort to control the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

In his position, according to the White House Drug Policy’s Web site, Kerlikowske “coordinates all aspects of Federal drug control programs and implementation of the President's National Drug Control Strategy.” After an event at the National Press Club on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Kerlikowske, “According to Border Patrol, only 873 [miles] of the 2,000-mile-long southwest border is under effective control. Does that affect your mission to control drugs?”

“Actually, I’m all here about prescription drugs today, thanks,” Kerlikowske said after participating in a panel discussion on the national prescription drug epidemic. He made no further comment on the border-drug issue. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), of the 1,107 border miles that are now under “effective control,” 69 miles are on the U.S.-Canada border, 165 miles are in the coastal sectors covered by the Border Patrol, and 873 are on the U.S.-Mexico (southwest) border.

The Justice Department’s National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010 says, “Nineteen percent of youth aged 12 to 17 report past year illicit drug use.” The assessment also says that Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are the primary supplier of those illegal drugs. “Law enforcement reporting and case initiation data show that Mexican DTOs control most of the wholesale cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine distribution in the United States, as well as much of the marijuana distribution,” said the assessment.

In his first interview after being confirmed as the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, back in May 2009, Kerlikowske said he wanted to end the idea that the United States is engaged in a war on drugs. "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he said. "We're not at war with people in this country."

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Arizona Sheriff Cites Flood of Border Agents Confirming Feds' No-Apprehension Policy
April 19, 2011 | An Arizona sheriff says he has been flooded with calls and emails of support from local and federal agents who back his claims that the U.S. Border Patrol has effectively ordered them to stop apprehending illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border.

“Upper management has advised supervisors to have agents ‘turn back South’ (TBS) the illegal aliens (aka bodies) they detect attempting to unlawfully enter the country … at times you even hear supervisors order the agents over the radio to 'TBS' the aliens instead of catching them,” one San Diego border agent wrote in an email to Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever. “This only causes more problems as the aliens, as you know, don't just go back to Mexico and give up. They keep trying, sometimes without 10 minutes in-between attempts, to cross illegally,” continued the email, which was among a number of communications to Dever reviewed by FoxNews.com. “This makes the job for agents more dangerous. Not only are the aliens more defiant, they also begin to feel like they can get away with breaking our federal laws.”

The email is one of more than 100 messages Dever said he received from active and retired Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officers from across the country. Many wrote of what they said was their own experience and first-hand knowledge of Border Patrol’s efforts to reduce apprehension numbers by making fewer arrests. FoxNews.com first reported this month that Dever said several Border Patrol officials, including at least one senior supervisor, told him they had been directed to keep the number of border apprehensions down by chasing illegal immigrants back toward Mexico. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has recently cited a reduction in border apprehensions as evidence of an increasingly secure border.

Three days after FoxNews.com’s initial report, Border Patrol chief Michael Fisher sent a letter to Dever in which he denied the accusations and invited the sheriff on a ride-along with federal agents at border. "That assertion is completely, 100 percent false," Fisher wrote in the letter. "That it comes from a fellow law enforcement official makes it especially offensive." But accounts from law enforcement officials around the country continue to pour in supporting Dever and the conversations he says he had with Border Patrol officers, including at least one supervisor, about keeping arrest numbers down. “This is nothing new, during my career with the border patrol, this was done regularly,” said another email to Dever reviewed by FoxNews.com. “By assigning agents to different tasks, locations, etc., the apprehensions can be increased or decreased dramatically,” wrote Dan McCaskill Jr., a retired Border Patrol agent who worked in the Anti-Smuggling Unit.

Read more: EXCLUSIVE: Arizona Sheriff Cites Flood of Border Agents Confirming Feds' No-Apprehension Policy - FoxNews.com