Mexican Drug Cartels Profit on American Soil

Anyone who has been lulled into complacency about the issue of undocumented immigrants entering the United States by stories of individuals or families who have come to America needs to take the time to learn about the other side of the coin.

It isn't only well-intentioned people who are crossing the Mexican-American border illegally; it is also dangerous members of drug cartels whose efforts to smuggle drugs across the border have been thwarted by government agencies.

If you have any doubts about the veracity of this statement, consider these two recent discoveries:

In Sequoia National Forest, California, government officials eradicated more than 420,000 pot plants that would have netted a street value of more than $1 billion. One pot farm alone, with 10,000 five-foot-tall plants, would have been worth around $40 million.

From the coordinated efforts by federal, state, and county law enforcement, 38 people were arrested and 29 automatic weapons, high powered rifles, and other guns were seized.

While not all of the workers at the pot farms are undocumented workers, as some of the immigrants have established residency in the U.S., a great many of them are brought across the border for the specific tasks of providing work for the pot farms.

Workers enter the forest with everything they will need, including tents, food, guns, irrigation equipment, and pot seeds since the pot farms are established miles into the 1.2 million acre national forest. The farms themselves are models of farming efficiency, with miles of gravity-fed irrigation hoses supplying individual drip lines to each of the pot plants from mountain creeks the workers have dammed. Armed guards watch over the pot farms twenty-four hours a day during planting season.

Yakima Valley in Washington state is also combating massive pot farms that indicate ties with the Mexican drug cartels. People have been buying up vineyards in that area with hopes of making money in the wine business. But not everyone who's purchased vineyards recently share the same dream.

Seven vineyards have been raided by law enforcement that were converted to pot farms this summer alone. Of those seven, five had recently been purchased and a sixth one had been leased to pot growers by an unsuspecting vineyard owner. Authorities are working to establish owners of the other five vineyards.

So far this year--without the annual aerial surveillance yet-authorities have confiscated approximately 110,00 pot plants with a street value of more than $100 million, just in Yakima Valley. 22 arrests have been made.

Authorities cite difficulty determining ownership of the vineyards and other land due to the use of fictitious names or putting the property in the name of their wives or daughters to avoid civil forfeiture.

Legalities of pot aside, these drug cartels mean serious business, both in the United States and in Mexico. People from Mexico are coerced into working the pot farms for fear of their lives or the lives of their family members living in Mexico. The armed men who guard these pot farms will shoot to kill any person-whether a law enforcement official or a civilian who accidentally happens upon their farm. The money made here in the U.S. from the sale of the pot only strengthens the cartel even more. It is a vicious circle in every sense of the term.

Resources: Drug Dealers Turn Washington Vineyards Into Pot Farms: Shannon Dinny; August 9, 2008; carried by the Associated Press; http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hQj6MBfBv3J2LEAE9-8Tl8-VzkEQD92ENLP00

Mexican Cartels Running Pot Farms in U.S. National Forest; Dan Simon; August 8, 2008; CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/08/pot.eradication/?iref=mpstoryview