Border Security Shadows Immigration Reform

Immigration reform is back in the center of U.S. politics. But so is border security.

Like a miracle, the November election resurrected bipartisan consensus for immigration reform. Support for some type of immigration reform, whether comprehensive or piecemeal, spans nearly the entire political spectrum in post-election America -- in large part because of dramatically increasing political participation of Latinos, Asians, and other immigrant-based communities.

Advocacy for immigration reform is breaking into various camps – from those only supporting an expansion of guest-worker programs to those who insist on comprehensive immigration reform. All camps agree that border security is the necessary foundation for immigration reform.

When speaking about the new prospects for immigration reform after his reelection, President Obama made the now required nod to border security. It’s rare to hear any politician or reform advocate speak favorably of immigration reform without the apparently requisite bow to border security.

In U.S. political and advocacy communities, strong support for massive border security spending (or increased funding) constitutes a common ground. Virtually all regard border security as a precondition for immigration reform.

Yet for all the enthusiastic support for increased border security – whether as nationalist response, a tactic to achieve immigration reform, or because of anti-immigration or pro-drug control convictions – there is no common understanding of what border security actually means.

The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Border Patrol aren’t much help in defining or assessing border security.

About the closest they come to defining border security is declaring their commitment to “secure the border” against the entry of “dangerous people and goods.” This more militaristic and threat-laden phrasing that pushed aside the pre-9/11 language of “border control” and about blocking flows of illegal aliens and illegal drugs. 

The ambiguity and expansiveness of the new border security mission is paralleled by the Border Patrol’s apparent inability to evaluate the threats and risks to border security and to assess the degree to which the border is secure.

(to be continued)

Border Marijuana: Stamp It, Don't Seize It

The drug prohibition era began through the implementation of tax and certification regimes not with a zero tolerance mandate. Initially, it was widely accepted in Congress and among law enforcement agencies that there were legitimate medical uses for opiates and even stimulants.

The Harrison Act of 1914 aimed to end the recreational market for heroin, opium, and cocaine but was not intended to stop physicians from prescribing narcotics. The Harrison Act was self-described as "An Act To provide for the registration of, with collectors of internal revenue, and to impose a special tax on all persons who produce, import, manufacture, compound, deal in, dispense, sell, distribute, or give opium or coca leaves, their salts, derivatives, or preparations, and for other purposes." 

Although the objective of the Harrison Act was to regulate the domestic market, the legislation ushered the Customs Agency Service (later Customs Service and currently divided into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP))  into drug control in a major way for the first time -- both because the agency was empowered to enforce the act at the border and also because this first foray in drug-prohibition legislation led to a boom in cross-border drug smuggling.

Marijuana was not on the radar of drug prohibition proponents at the time the Harrison Act became the law of the land. By the 1930s, however, drug prohibition advocates had succeeded in instituting marijuana bans in several states. But the U.S. government didn’t see marijuana as the threat to public health, public safety, and national security, as it currently does. At the time, community healers and the medical sector were still exploring the medicinal and therapeutic uses of marijuana, and U.S. businesses were legally selling hemp fiber, oil, and seeds.

In its Narcotics Manual of 1927, the U.S. Customs Agency Service stated: “Neither is there any Federal law specifically regulating the importation of Marihuana, but by regulation under the Food and Drugs Act, Collectors of Customs are directed to refuse delivery of all consignments of Marihuana, unless the importer shall first execute a penal bond conditioned that the drug referred to will not be sold or otherwise disposed of for any purpose other than in the preparation of a medicine.”

The federal government gradually began cracking down harder on marijuana distribution both in the domestic market and on the border. The U.S. Border Patrol was created in 1924, but it was not until the late 1930s that the agency was given a clear mandate about marijuana enforcement.

Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which brought cannabis into the drug control structure established the Harrison Act for heroin, opium, and cocaine. A high tax was levied on marijuana distribution by this 1937 drug act, whose main proponent was Harry Anslinger, the antidrug crusader who was commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Under the provisions of the Marijuana Tax Act, the federal government made marijuana control its business for the first time -- through regulation of the importation, cultivation, possession, and marketing of the cannabis plant.

Although not explicitly prohibited, the anti-narcotics legislation put marijuana for the first time in the same regulatory framework used to crack down against heroin, opium, and cocaine – whose principal victims were the poor and people of color, not the predominantly middle- and upper-class consumers.

It remained legal to import marijuana into the country, and the U.S. Customs Agency Service did collect taxes and affix a certifying stamp on burlap bags of marijuana that met its requirements for legal use and sale. But the end result was that marijuana fell subject to an increasingly restrictive regularly climate that by 1970 evolved into complete drug prohibition.

Richard Nixon became the first drug warrior in the White House. Under his leadership, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, under which marijuana was classified as a Schedule 1 substance, along with heroin, MDMA, LSD, peyote, psilocybin, and other substances.

At the time that Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, the U.S. Customs Service Agency was not preoccupied with securing the border against crossborder flows of marijuana, as the Department of Homeland Security is today. The agency’s narcotics manual noted: “Marihuana may be cultivated or grown wild in almost any locality. Inasmuch as this drug is so readily obtained in the United States, it is not believed to be the subject of much organized smuggling from other countries.”

But the federal government’s steady move away from noninterference toward regulation, enforcement, and prohibition has resulted in a boom in marijuana smuggling, horrific drug-war violence in producer and transition countries, and mass criminalization and incarceration in the United States.

Today, the Customs and Border Protection agency, especially the Border Patrol, has made marijuana enforcement the chief operative focus of its border security mission. One can only speculate at what point will the federal government begin reversing its border control practices, perhaps by once again taxing and stamping marijuana imports. Or even -- with the advance of a medical marijuana and marijuana legalization -- end the agency’s misguided and ineffective commitment to marijuana enforcement entirely?

Recalling the scenario described in the narcotics manual of the mid-1930s, we may see the future of marijuana.

It just may be possible that some day, sooner than we think, we could see a time when marijuana is again grows throughout the United States outside of a drug prohibition regime, thereby displacing the Mexican and other foreign suppliers, ending the need for so much “border security” spending, and undercutting the foreign drug warriors – both the legal and illegal ones.

Border Security: It's About Marijuana

Tax it, certify it with a stamp from U.S. customs, and let the marijuana traders go on their way, as legal border crossers and business people.

That may seem a pipe dream, especially knowing that the Border Patrol is spending billions of dollars for border security operations to secure the homeland against marijuana. However, in its formative years, back in the late 1930s, that is exactly how the Border Patrol treated weed from Mexico.

Today, however, marijuana is the moral and legal equivalent of transnational organized crime. Moreover, marijuana is regarded as a security threat to the homeland. Over the past five years, as the flow of illegal immigrants has diminished to historic lows, the Border Patrol is mostly on the lookout for marijuana.

The Border Patrol’s border security buildup, including more agents, drones, and fences, has resulted in record quantities of seized marijuana and tens of thousands of Mexicans, Central Americans, and U.S. citizens arrested for violation of federal drug control statutes. Marijuana is a “Schedule 1” controlled substance, the same as heroin, cocaine, or methamphetamines.

In press releases and congressional statements, the Border Patrol routinely points to record-breaking quantities of weed seized and presumably destroyed. Last year the Border Patrol boasted that its commitment to border security on the southwestern border yielded 2.53 million pounds of marijuana.

These seizures, declares, the Border Patrol are a direct strike against what it formerly called the drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) in Mexico, which in the past couple of years have been relabeled as transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).

Marijuana seizures, along with the apprehensions of those illegally crossing the weed across the border (usually in bundles tied to their back), are successes in the border campaign to “disrupt and dismantle” the TCOs.

In other agency releases, the Border Patrol prefers different alliterations. The agency’s Arizona-based Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats (ACTT) aims to “deny, degrade, disrupt, and ultimately dismantle criminal organizations and their ability to operate; engage communities to reduce their tolerance of illegal activity.” Alternatively, the Border Patrol sometimes deploys other “d” words, saying its drug war operations aim to “detect and deter” TCO activities.

The Border Patrol doesn’t say how many members of the TCO leadership have fallen to the agency. But it does regularly issue press releases lauding drug war seizures and arrests.

What’s so striking about these figures is that these drug war victories only rarely involve illegal drugs other than marijuana.

Measured by the weight, the Border Patrol in 2011 seized 2,529,211 pounds of heroin, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines, and ecstasy along the southwestern border.

The marijuana seizures weighed 2,518,211 pounds of marijuana – comprising 99.3% of the total. Measured by the seizures of these illegal drugs, marijuana constituted 93.5% of the total number of the Border Patrol seizures of these drugs between the ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

Since the early 1990s the U.S. government has been stepping up its efforts to control drug flows across its borders. Until 1914 – when the U.S. Congress passed the Harrison Act, the first in a mounting number of federal anti-drug laws – there was little effort to control narcotics (such as heroin and opium), stimulants (such as cocaine), or psychoactive plants (such a marijuana). In the 1890s, you could even order a syringe and a small stash of cocaine through the Sears & Roebuck catalog – for $1.50 plus handling.

As addiction rates increased, calls for a crackdown against heroin, cocaine, and opium mounted after the turn of the century.

However, as the support for drug prohibition expanded, marijuana was largely ignored. Cannabis could be grown almost anywhere, but most of the weed crossed into the United States from Mexico.

Marijuana or marihuana is a portmanteau word, joining the Spanish names María and Juana. Thus, the English nicknames Mary Jane and Mary Warner.

(to be continued)