American youth recruited by
Mexican drug cartel
Friday, October 23, 2009
By Carl Braun
Examiner.com
Weapons and drugs seized by San Bernardino Sheriffs Dept in recent raid on Mexican drug cartel.
AP Photo/Reed Saxon
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You can work at McDonalds for minimum wage or you can work for Juan and drive a $60,000 Escalade. Take your pick. That is the choice facing many American teenagers in border communities these days and sad to say, some are going for the SUV, unaware of the risk that brings on both sides of the fence.
In a piece first published in Mexico City’s El Universal, the magnitude of the problem is enormous and growing. The mayor of Laredo Texas, Raul Salinas, says, “Nobody wants to work at a McDonald’s.” Drug trafficking is the option for many unemployed.
Young people are used as scouts and mules getting the loads from one place to another. The older and more experienced ones recruit informants and other youth. The women, many still children themselves, seduce and bribe agents. The young ones watch loads, transport and sell drugs. Many are white suburban kids looking for a thrill and some quick cash. Through a sophisticated cell phone network they guide their loads from place to place looking out for the authorities or anything unusual. Some are only 13-15 years old. Texas law prohibits jailing minors, which makes them ideal conscripts for the cartel and relatively cheap labor. They make a few hundred bucks a week for operating as the cartel’s eyes and ears on American streets. Still others are hardened criminals and members of violent gangs like MS-13. Often they recruit other urban youngsters for missions.
In California these American youth are used to watch and report traffic patterns of Border Agents and even Minutemen. During early morning hours it is not unusual to see ATV’s and motorcycles, running with their lights off on border roads and trails. They are either taking loads from one place to another or heading to remote watch posts where they oversee, catalog and call in movements of BP and citizen patrols.
Their camouflage is their skin color. If caught they own up to joyriding or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are told what to say and how to get out of a jam with the authorities. While riding a motorcycle with the lights off may be dangerous, you’re not going to do prison time for it unless you are caught with the goods. Even then, the courts are so overloaded that first and second offenders, especially youth, are rarely jailed and plead out to lesser charges.
This is not just a border issue. America’s youth have always been at risk for this type of enterprise. Today however, the Cartels, with mounds of money, are willing to do almost anything to get their loads through a significantly tighter border. They don’t need to use the old “Gold or Lead” threat with kids like they do with ranchers. For many young Americans, gold works just fine.
Note: Many thanks to the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) for translating the El Universal article.
Carl Braun is an analyst for the Homeland Security Policy Institute Group and he's logged 5,000-plus hours on the border. He has written several books including his most recent on Border Insecurity, “Above All Else”
. Contact Carl at Carl.Braun@BPAUX.org.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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