Silver over the border: US law enforcement corruption on the Southwest Border

Abstract

US national security is seriously challenged by the more visible appearance of American law enforcement and security corruption among organizations charged with policing and protecting the US–Mexican border. A burgeoning number of allegations, criminal investigations, indictments, and convictions directed against US law enforcement personnel calls into question the fundamental integrity of US border security forces and leadership, as well as the willingness or capability of key agencies and their executive branch leadership to effect reforms. For the United States, such law enforcement and other official US Government corruption acts like corrosive acid on the legitimacy of these institutions and upon domestic and allied trust in their integrity and competence.

Keywords:

• bribery
• corruption
• Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• drug trafficking
• immigration
• law enforcement
• Mexico
• police
• Southwest Border
• weapons trafficking

Notes

 1. For example, Smith, The Disappearing Border, and successful Mexican Presidential Candidate Vicente Fox, whose views were noted in Sheridan, ‘Mexican Candidate Vows to Push for Open Border’.

 2. Corruption as a legal term covers a broad range of illegal activities and varies among entities being considered. For the purposes of this essay, it is used as a general term to include the collaboration of official US officials with foreign nationals and US citizens engaged in contraband activities of all types, illegal alien smuggling, coercion, improper information sharing, and direct involvement in carrying out illegal activities.

 3. Williams, ‘Terrorism, Organized Crime, and WMD Smuggling’.

 4. Turbiville, Russian Special Forces, 10.

 5. White House, National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy.

 6. White House, National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy, 23.

 7. White House, National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy, 34.

 8. See, for example, McGraw, ‘The Corrupting Allure of Dirty Drug Money’.

 9. Webster, ‘FBI Expanding US Mexican Border Anti-Terrorist Corruption Task Force’. FBI-led Border Corruption Task Forces are the cornerstone of our efforts to root out this kind of corruption. Initially located primarily along our nation's Southwest Border, we now also have task forces in Detroit, Miami, and San Juan, and we are setting up others in cities like Buffalo, Newark, and Seattle. These task forces generally consist of representatives from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security agencies (including Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs, Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Department of Homeland Security – Office of Inspector General), and state and local law enforcement.

10. Webster, ‘FBI Expanding US Mexican Border Anti-Terrorist Corruption Task Force’. In regard to the Task Forces, it was noted further: A multi-agency response. FBI-led Border Corruption Task Forces are the cornerstone of our efforts to root out this kind of corruption. Initially located primarily along our nation's Southwest Border, we now also have task forces in Detroit, Miami, and San Juan, and we are setting up others in cities like Buffalo, Newark, and Seattle. These task forces generally consist of representatives from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security agencies (including Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs, Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Department of Homeland Security – Office of Inspector General), and state and local law enforcement

11. Webster, ‘FBI Expanding US Mexican Border Anti-Terrorist Corruption Task Force’. In regard to the Task Forces, it was noted further: A multi-agency response. FBI-led Border Corruption Task Forces are the cornerstone of our efforts to root out this kind of corruption. Initially located primarily along our nation's Southwest Border, we now also have task forces in Detroit, Miami, and San Juan, and we are setting up others in cities like Buffalo, Newark, and Seattle. These task forces generally consist of representatives from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security agencies (including Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs, Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Department of Homeland Security – Office of Inspector General), and state and local law enforcement

12. Perkins, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration, 1–2.

13. Tomsheck, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration.

14. Frost, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration.

15. McauleysWorld, ‘Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano Dodges Questions from US Senate While Delaying Implementation of ‘the Anti-Border Corruption Act’.

16. US Senate, Transcript of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs Hearing on Assessing Customs and Border Protection Corruption.

17. US Senate, Transcript of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs Hearing on Assessing Customs and Border Protection Corruption, 8.

18. US Senate, Transcript of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs Hearing on Assessing Customs and Border Protection Corruption, 24.

19. Mueller, Statement Before the House Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC.

20. US Department of Justice, FY 2011 Interagency Crime and Drug Enforcement Congressional Budget Submission, 41–42.

21. Bersin, before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs.

22. Henson, ‘Border Corruption Runs Amok: New Cash for Border Cops Should Go to Internal Affairs’.

23. McElhatton, ‘Top-Secret Clearance Checks Falsified: Time, Money Now Spent to Probe Fraud’.

24. US Attorney's Office, Southern District of Florida, ‘Former ICE Agent Pleads Guilty to Obstruction of Justice’. See also Webster, ‘FBI Expanding US Mexican Border Anti-Terrorist Corruption Task Force’; Marizco, ‘High Ranking Homeland Security Official Arrested on Trafficking Charges’; and Contreras, ‘Can the Culture of Corruption at the DHS-ICE and other Federal Workplaces bring the Obama's US Presidency down in 2012?’.

25. Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘On the Southwest Border: Public Corruption: A Few Bad Apples’.

26. Frost, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration, 4.

27. Frost, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration, 6.

28. Frost, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration

29. Carroll, ‘Report: Feds Downplayed ICE Case Dismissals’.

30. US Department of Justice, ‘“Fast and Furious” a “Catastrophic Disaster”: Border Agents Criticize Weapons Program’; Corocran, ‘Gunmen Kill US Agent, Wound Another, in Mexico’; Attkisson, ‘Gunrunning Scandal Uncovered at the ATF’; Romo, ‘Authorities: Mexican Drug Lord Tied to Death of ICE Agent Captured’; Boyle, ‘Issa, Grassley Blast Holder in Letter After Secret Meeting with ATF's Ken Melson’; Lajeunesse, ‘Justice Department Obstructing “Fast and Furious” Gun Probe, ATF Director Says’; and ABC News , ‘ATF Chief Testifies Before Congress in Secret Over Controversial Gun Program’.

31. Transparency International, ‘Corruption Perception Index 2010’.

32. Links to archives for 2001–2010 can be found at http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi, as can a full explanation of how the surveys were scored and conducted.

33. Rasmussen Reports, ’43% Say Most Members of Congress Are Corrupt'.

34. Dallas, ‘Americans’ Confidence in US Political Institutions Drops to New Lows'.

35. For the DHS memorandum and a discussion, see Conroy, ‘Dhs Memo Reveals Agency Personnel Are Treated Like “Human Capital”’. See also Fitzgerald and Ferrara, BorderGate, for many detailed accounts of Homeland Security – especially Customs – corruption since 9/11.

36. Frost, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration.

37. Ibid. See also, Turbiville, Guerrilla Counterintelligence.

38. Tomsheck, before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration.

39. Politifact.Com, ‘Obama Says Border Patrol Has Doubled the Number of Agents Since 2004’.

40. Morgan, The Reaper's Line. See also the interesting accounts from the same general period by Ligon, Ten Years On the Line.

41. Dettmer, ‘Border Agents in Douglas Have Waved It Through’.

42. Billingsley, ‘Mexican Drug Lords Trying to Gun Down US Border Patrol’. See also Turbiville, ‘Firefights, Raids, and Assassinations’, for a fuller discussion of the context in which coercion and generally was growing along the border.

43. Jernigan, ‘Terrorist Threat to Texas Borders’, Written Testimony on ‘Federal Strategies to End Border Violence’.

44. Proffer, ‘La Joya Police Say They Know Cartels Have Targets on Their Backs’.

45. Corocran, ‘Gunmen Kill US Agent, Wound Another, in Mexico’.

46. Casey and de Córdoba, ‘US Warns of Mexico Peril: Consulate Says Americans May Be Targets of Drug Gangs; 32 More Bodies Found’.

47. Serrano, ‘10 Border Gang Members Charged in US Consulate killings’; and Romo, ‘Authorities: Mexican Drug Lord Tied to Death of ICE Agent Captured’.

48. Associated Press. ‘Message to US agents: ‘We'll chop your heads off’’.

49. Noticias Univision , ‘Attacks on US Border Patrol agents increase: Narcos are not willing to lose’.