Mexican Cartels ‘Increasingly’ Corrupting DHS Employees to Smuggle Aliens From Countries ‘Likely to Export Terrorism’

Mexican cartels “increasingly” are involved in the “systemic corruption” of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) workers as the cartels attempt to expand their drug and human smuggling operations -- including the trafficking of aliens from terrorism-linked countries into the U.S., the DHS acting inspector general told lawmakers earlier this month. “As the United States enhances border security with successful technologies and increased staffing to disrupt smuggling routes and networks, drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) have become not only more violent and dangerous, but more clever as well. The DTOs have turned to recruiting and corrupting DHS employees,” Charles Edwards, the acting DHS inspector general, said in written remarks prepared for an August 1 hearing of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. “According to government reports, DTOs are becoming involved increasingly in systematic corruption of DHS employees to further alien and drug smuggling, including the smuggling of aliens from designated special interest countries likely to export terrorism.” Special interest countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia, among others. As CNSNews.com previously reported, in Fiscal 2011, 255 aliens from special interest countries were apprehended along the Southwest border and164 were detained along the border with Canada...more