When ports of entry are no longer a trafficking option, the lack of wall will be a trafficking option. A wall will allow more manpower at ports, forcing a schizoid choice of the drug pimp's options. Transmuted immigration funds might consider the fact that cost of nursing home for Alzheimer's in Wisconsin is $90,000 per year. A manned wall would require how many guards per mile? A drone-equipped wall would require how many personnel?
The savings realized after the wall is built could pay for the wall's cost in 10 years or so.
Here is some stats about drugs over the Mexican border.
Southwestern border
Most of the illicit drugs come into the United States across the vast 2,000-mile land border between the US and Mexico, called the Southwestern border or SWB.[11]
Drug cartels in Mexico utilize drug mules, tunnels, boats, vehicles, trains, aircrafts, donkeys, and couriers to get illegal drugs into America. Mexican drug cartels make an estimated $19-$29 billion a year on drug sales in the United States.[12]
Conflicts between drug cartels over territory as well as the attempts to stop drug trafficking by law enforcement officials often results in violence, and this has caused over 55,000 deaths since the proclaimed Mexican Drug War began in 2006.[13]
Mexico’s involvement in the illicit drug trade in the United States:
* Marijuana: Mexico is the number one foreign supplier of marijuana to the United States, and marijuana is thought to be the top revenue generator for Mexican drug cartels.
* Cocaine: Mexico does not produce cocaine, however, Mexican cartels move Columbian cocaine through South and Central America and into the United States. An estimated 93 percent of cocaine headed to the US from South America moves through Mexico.
* Methamphetamine: Mexico remains the biggest foreign supplier of methamphetamine to the United States, and Mexican drug cartels set up labs to manufacture meth on both sides of the border, controlling labs in Southern California as well as domestically.
* Heroin: While Asia and the Middle East remain the biggest producers of heroin, Mexican black-tar and brown heroin is on the rise. In fact, 39 percent of heroin identified under the DEA’s Heroin Signature Program (HSP) in 2008 came from Mexico, making Mexico the source country for many of the heroin abusers west of the Mississippi River.[14]
It is no surprise then that the top five districts sentencing drug trafficking offenders were on or near the SWB in 2013:
* Western District of Texas: 1,587 sentenced drug trafficking offenders
* Southern District of California: 1,426 sentenced drug trafficking offenders
* Southern District of Texas: 1,279 sentenced drug trafficking offenders
* District of Arizona: 1,162 sentenced drug trafficking offenders
* District of Puerto Rico: 687 sentenced drug trafficking offenders[15]
Drug Trafficking by the Numbers