Amid #Illegal Alien Onslaught, Mexican Cartels Boost Drug Smuggling Into U.S.

We're being invaded and the system is overwhelmed.

At the Washington Post, "Wave of Central American migrants strains Border Patrol, reducing number of drug busts":

MCALLEN, Tex. — With the Border Patrol distracted by a surge of Central American migrants crossing into south Texas, Mexican cartels have had an easier time smuggling illegal drugs across the border, according to agents and state officials here.

The arrival of large groups of women and children on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande is pulling agents away from their patrol stations elsewhere along the border, creating gaps in coverage that the traffickers can exploit, according to Chris Cabrera, the Border Patrol union representative here.

The smugglers wait on the southern banks of the Rio Grande as migrant groups as large as 250 wade across at dusk and turn themselves in to the Border Patrol, he said. Then groups of single men proceed to cross under cover of darkness, hoping to slip through.

“After that they send over the dope,” Cabrera said, with U.S. officers too busy to stop it.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) and Gov. Rick Perry (R) have echoed the complaints. In a letter this month to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Abbott asked for $30 million for law enforcement officers to fill in the gaps because “we have grave concerns that dangerous cartel activity, including narcotics smuggling and human trafficking, will go unchecked because Border Patrol resources are stretched too thin.”

The most recent statistics from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) show that narcotics seizures have fallen across the entire border with Mexico this year, with the drop being larger in Texas than the average.

In Texas, combined seizures of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine fell by 34 percent — from 374,812 to 246,976 kilograms — between Jan. 1 and June 14 compared with the same period last year. Seizures in Arizona and California fell by 26 percent in each state. The decline was greatest in New Mexico — 62 percent — and the overall amount of drugs captured was also far lower than in other states...