WASHINGTON -- Last week, the Obama administration announced a new interagency initiative involving the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, designed to put a stop to the drug-fueled violence that has swept the northern parts of Mexico in recent months. Among the initiatives, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice officials -- with their Mexican counterparts -- will confront the criminal enterprises that traffic drugs, arms and cash across the border. Many in Washington welcomed the invigorated strategy, and rightly so: Increased and effective cooperation between the U.S. and its southern neighbor is long overdue. Bush administration policies combining highly punitive domestic immigration enforcement with heavy-handed border controls have done little to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, much less repair the hopelessly broken immigration system itself. Meanwhile, many are optimistic that the new approach will also address a far less publicized issue: the criminalized human-trafficking network that has systematically emerged along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
Human Smuggling Rings Drive Mexico Violence
