The $5M question: Babeu vs. the stats

[Angelhair]

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu says the effects of cross-border smuggling are "far worse" there than in Arizona's border counties, and that's why his county merits $5 million in special border-security funding from the Legislature.

But a county-by-county breakdown of apprehensions and drug seizures carried out by the U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona suggests an entirely different picture.

More than 95 percent of all apprehensions and pounds of marijuana seized in Arizona from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 17, 2011, have occurred in Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties, figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show.

Yuma and Pinal counties each account for just 2 percent of all apprehensions and pounds of marijuana seized over this 3 1/2-year span.

The concentration of arrests and seizures in Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties is not surprising considering that the three border counties are in the heart of what has been the busiest drug- and people-smuggling corridor along the U.S.-Mexico border for the last decade.

But it might be surprising to legislators and voters who've heard Babeu's discussion of the droves of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers trekking through his county, located 80 miles from the border.

"It's far worse than Pima County, Cochise County or Santa Cruz County," Babeu said in an interview this month. The Border Patrol, he said, "are the ones who've said that all roads lead to Pinal County."

Elected in November 2008, Babeu has earned nationwide recognition as a border-security hawk, criticizing the Obama administration while calling for more troops and fences on the border.

He often calls Pinal County "the No. 1 pass-through county for drug- and human-smuggling in America."

To demonstrate, he cites department figures showing a surge in vehicle pursuits, marijuana seizures and calls to the Border Patrol in the last two to three years. His spokesman, Tim Gaffney, says these metrics are greater in Pinal County than the Arizona border counties but does not provide statistics to back that.

The $5M question: Babeu vs. the stats

 

[LilOlLady]

He often calls Pinal County "the No. 1 pass-through county for drug- and human-smuggling in America."


It was pretty much the same way 60 years ago long before Sheriff Babau was even born. I grew up in Pinal country and left at age 15 because of the drugs and illegal aliens. I went back in 1985 and saw friend I grew up with who were drug addicts. There are drugs addicts much older than I am. And their children's children are on drugs. And I am 71.

 

[waltky]

Sheriff Babeu tellin' it like it is...

Border Sheriff on Mexican Cartels: They're Decapitating Police Officers -- 'If That's Not a Terrorist Act, What Is?'
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 Washington – The federal government should designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under U.S. law, according to the Republican sheriff of an Arizona county near the U.S.-Mexico border.

But a Democratic judge in Texas disagrees, saying such a designation would achieve little. Instead, said the judge, attention should be focused on illegal drug consumption by Americans. Asked by CNSNews.com whether he would support designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) – as some lawmakers are suggesting as a way to target their finances – Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Ariz. replied, “Absolutely.” “They are terrorists,” said Babeu, a Republican elected official. “Literally 35,000 people have been brutally murdered in Mexico. The president just articulated we went and bombed Libya because we didn’t want possibly 1,000 civilians just killed – it would have been blood on our hands.” “Wait a minute,” he continued. “That’s half way around the world. Look south –35,000 people killed and they’re not just regular people [but] judges, police chiefs, you know, anybody who stands up in their way.” “They’re cutting police officers’ heads off, killing them, laying them in front of the police station,” Babeu said. “If that’s not a terrorist act, what is? They have destabilized Mexico to the point where it’s caused great concern here.” Pinal County is located south of Phoenix, about 70 miles north of the southwest border.

CNSNews.com also put the question to Judge Veronica Escobar of El Paso, Texas, a Democratic elected official. She replied that FTO designation for the cartels would do little more than create “chatter” in the news media. The government should deal with Americans’ appetite for illicit drugs, Escobar said, as they are the ones “fueling” the drug war. “I don’t know what added tools it [designation] gives the federal [authorities],” she said. “I’m no fan of the cartels. They’re awful, they’re causing incredible bloodshed, they are ruining the lives of families in my community who have family in Ciudad Juarez [directly across the border from El Paso], the most dangerous city in the world – but what does that do to get us where we want to go?” “I don’t understand what it [listing as FTOs] does except, you know, creates a lot of talk and chatter on the cable news stations and it gives somebody something else to talk about,” Escobar continued. “I want to know what are we going to do about Americans’ insatiable appetite for those illegal drugs. Americans are fueling that war.”

CNSNews.com spoke to Babeu and Escobar after they testified before a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing, offering mostly opposing views on border security. Babeu said the U.S. needs to send “military advisors” and “special forces” to the border, much as it did in Colombia in earlier decades to deal with the insurgency troubling that country. He told CNSNews.com that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had “made a good comparison to Colombia of two decades ago, with the Medellin cartel.” “What did we do there that we said was in our national interest?” he said. “We sent military advisors, Special Forces down to ensure their government didn’t fall, and that’s what we need to do here.” Clinton stated last September that the situation in Mexico was looking “more and more” like Colombia of two decades ago, “where the narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country.” Babeu warned that the further destabilization of the Mexican government will open the border for criminal elements to “come in and buy their way into the United States.”

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