All must be quiet on the Southern front: Governor Kristi Noem announced Friday that she is pulling our mercenaries out of Texas.
In her press release, the Governor maintains that when they weren’t posing for pictures at What-a-Burger, South Dakota’s National Guardspeople did something about the drugs and human traffickers that aren’t pouring across the border:
Our troops delivered on their mission, providing boots on the ground to supplement the efforts of Texas state troopers, National Guard, and Customs and Border Patrol agents. They directly assisted in stopping human trafficking and drug smuggling into our nation [Gov. Kristi Noem, press release, 2021.09.03].
Balderdash: we noted before the deployment that illegal crossings of the United States–Mexico border are not a major source of either sex slaves or illegal drugs. Most of the border drug traffic comes through regular ports of entry (think about it: big smart producers of coke and meth for gringos aren’t going to ship their valuable product via scattered individuals backpacking across the desert; they’re going to ship in bulk, in trucks driven by pros, on nice fast highways), and most of the drug haulers nabbed are American citizens. And if we really want to reduce the prostitution and forced labor that Gov. Noem claims to be worried about, we could grant amnesty to undocumented workers and all more refugees into the country legally, which would remove those people from the desperate conditions that make them vulnerable to traffickers in the first place.
Noem claims that she can end her sloppily budgeted occupation of Texas because “Thanks to our troops, Texas had time to organize and will now increase its financial commitment and manpower from within the state.” So our troops didn’t really get rid of the problem; we’re just handing the problem back to Texas… and shortly sending back more than twice as many of our troops on a call-up funded not by some cantankerous Tennessee car junker but by the federal government, the way troops should be legally deployed on interstate missions.
Ironically, I know personally one and know of another South Dakotan(s) who were in fact directly engaged in running drugs across the Southern border professionally – by the truck load, dating all the way back to the 1970s. At least one of the continued into the 90’s. Even more ironically, he is currently a MAGA man as well. And you are correct, it is US professionals who are the smugglers.
Noem proves herself to be a squish on immigration. A real man would pay any price and bear any burden to throttle all immigration at the southern border. Noem “bidens” her capitulation with happy talk about handing things off to the Texas authorities. A real man would stay untill the job was done.
She got bored, right?
Perhaps her rich doner pulled out; realizing she is not all that.
This seems to be the MO for GOP military deployment: go in with lofty promises but no plan, don’t affect the outcome; leave with the problem no better – or worse – than when originally deployed. Leave someone else holding the bag for the cost in blood and treasure for the operation. But at least there was a photo op looking like a military leader.
Wonder how much covid they returned with.
SD Nat’l Guard probably got to know some “Newest Americans”, while they were standing around, trying to look busy.
If the pattern continues, they discovered what fine people Mexicans and Central Americans are.
At that point, the troops undoubtedly invited many to come up, with promises of jobs and Catholic churches.
English as a second language classes, anyone?
Now we finally get a follow-up report of what the troop deployments to the US/Mexico border by governors (including Gov. Noem) “accomplished”: https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/national-guard-investigation/
Spoilers – it was not good.
Noem was right, the troops did something about drugs. They ingested them. Who knew?
Great link, O, and thanks a tankful.