Unbeknownst to much of the U.S. public, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection admitted last week to 95 cases of corruption within his agency related to drug trafficking, undocumented immigrants and money laundering by organized crime groups in Mexico. In other words, U.S. customs officials are being bribed. According to this editorial from Mexico’s La Jornada, this is more proof of the dangerous institutional disintegration in both nations, due to which large numbers of Mexicans are being killed every day.
The La Jornada editorial says in part:
In an appearance before the U.S. Senate, the head of the bureau of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (known by its English acronym, CBP), Alan Bersin, acknowledged that organized crime groups have co-opted elements under his command, and acknowledged that so far, they have uncovered 95 cases of corruption relating to drug trafficking, undocumented immigrants and money laundering within the ranks of his agency.
This was the first solid data demonstrating that corruption is endemic to agencies of the neighboring country, a phenomena that as a whole, Washington authorities have up to now been unable or unwilling to recognize, much less attack.
Moreover, the number of corruption cases admitted to by Bersin lack veracity when viewed alongside the unending flow of illegal drugs that enter U.S. territory across the Mexican border every day. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that criminal gangs could have supplied the largest narcotics market on the planet, with the collusion of less than a hundred customs officials. On the contrary, the rise of organized crime – and drug trafficking in particular – both in Mexico and the United States, reflect a breakdown on a huge scale in the institutional spheres of both countries, which translates into corruption and impunity.
Confronted with the U.S. government’s double standard when it comes to the war on drugs, and above all, in the face of the exasperating daily bloodbath now taking place in Mexico, the federal authorities should inevitably question the relevance – and even the truthfulness – of the public safety strategy imposed by Washington.
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