Report From the New Mexico Border

 By Crystal Foreman Brown

I grew up and live on the border in New Mexico.  I knew Rob Krentz, the rancher in southeast Arizona, famously murdered by a Mexican national while out on his own property.  The day before the murder he helped the Border Patrol to recover a fairly large amount of marijuana hidden on his property -- the BP did not chase down or arrest the drug carriers involved, telling Rob that merely taking their drugs would be punishment enough when the unsuccessful smugglers returned to Mexico and faced their bosses’ wrath.  One of those who got away came back and killed Rob the next day. 

Drug smugglers still inhabit the mountains all around this area, even in public campgrounds on a close-by national forest. Local and state law enforcement is prevented by federal authority to arrest or enforce law concerning these matters -- they have simply erected signs to warn those who come to visit, and washed their hands of the responsibility of action.  All authority is given over to “Homeland Security.”  This is an example of federally mandated “policy” being implemented as if it were law, which it is not.  Especially since 9/11, it has been S.O.P. for both parties to practice this “new” kind of governance.

I am witness to the southern border area becoming a vast, lawless and ungovernable area, much like the “Frontera” of Mexico just across the line where more than 50,000 people have been murdered in the last few years.  This is ongoing, but I suspect the average American does not know it, and has not thought about how simple, or how sacrosanct and important a border is.  Property that has no edges or limits cannot be governed.   Imagine trying to protect your home if the walls and yard fences were questionable as “your area.”

I risk the lives of friends and family if I write specific instances that I know of, where there have been threats and coercion by individuals and by cartel sponsored smugglers and even by federal authorities. 

Someone forced a friend, while her family was taken hostage, to take a woman in labor to a local hospital to give birth to a new “American,” a precious and innocent infant, planted to make illegal activities easier. 

Others were openly threatened if they reported suspicious activity.  Murdered, headless bodies discovered near homes and family.  A father murdered in the presence of his family because he would not give his farm equipment to the cartel locals -- on this side of the border. 

Businesses closing, ranches and farms going under, schools losing students and funding to the point of dysfunction, property values plummeting -- I am affected by these things daily. 

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And here you see the impact of the War on Drugs on rural families and economies.  Through the eighties and early 90s "the main smuggling route was via the Caribbean into Florida."  We couldn't have those beaches fouled so federal interdiction made this route problematic for the cartels, who then started using Mexico as their gateway.  The Border Patrol then began a program to divert the illegal crossers from urban areas to the most remote and rural areas.  Above you see the results of the War on Drugs, and the way its being waged, on our rural citizens and resources.  What's happening is no accident.