Wasting Resources on the Border

Wasting Resources on the Border

The May 18, 2009 Dallas Morning News reports on the efforts to stop the flow of guns southward--and what a waste of energy it is:

This is what the Obama administration's new commitment to help Mexico fight its drug cartels looks like.
President Barack Obama this spring promised his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderón, that the U.S. would fight two of the biggest contributions U.S. residents make to drug cartels: cash and weapons. The latter is hard to come by in Mexico.
For the past five weeks, hundreds of agents participating in a newly intensified $95 million outbound inspection program have been stepping into southbound traffic lanes and stopping suspicious-looking cars and trucks.
Associated Press reporters fanned out to the busiest crossings along the Mexican border – Laredo and El Paso; Nogales, Ariz.; and San Diego – to see how effective the inspections are.
The findings? Wads of U.S. currency headed for Mexico, wedged into car doors, stuffed under mattresses, taped onto torsos, were sniffed out by dogs, seized by agents and locked away for possible investigations. No guns were found as the reporters watched; they rarely are.
"I do not believe we can even make a dent in [southbound smuggling] because that assumes the cartels are complete idiots, which they're not. Why in the world would they try to smuggle weapons and currency through a checkpoint when there are so many other options?" said Border Patrol Agent T.J. Bonner, president of the agents' union.

The wads of cash being seized are, very likely, going to the drug cartels, as payment for drugs smuggled north. To the extent that this effort reduces money received by the drug cartels, it may make a dent in their ability to buy weapons--but we already know that most of the weapons aren't coming from the U.S.