One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."
UNICEF: U.S. kids worse off than many of their Western counterparts
Posted by Caitlin Dewey and Max Fisher on April 18, 2013 at 11:48 am
Data source: UNICEF
American children are on average worse off than children in Western
Europe and barely better off than their counterparts in the Baltic
states and the former Yugoslavia, according to a recent report from United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on the welfare of children in developed countries.
The report, which compares kids in 29 Western countries, measures
well-being across five metrics: material well-being, health and safety,
behaviors and risks, housing and environment, as well as education. It
ranks the United States in the bottom third on all five measures of
well-being and particularly low on education and poverty. The United
States is joined at the bottom by “emerging” European economies, while
the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands come out on top. The
report notes that this latter group of countries tends to spend far more
per capita on social welfare programs.
The countries with the best reported child well-being tend to invest
in strong social safety nets. Norway, Iceland and Sweden sink nearly 7 percent of their GDP, according to an OECD report, into education. Countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which until the ‘90s had GDPs per capita
of less than $5,000, have been able to put less money into such
services. Though U.S. GDP per capita was more than $48,000 in 2012, that
money is not spread evenly cross the unusually large U.S. population.
As we noted earlier,
one of the report’s more alarming findings for the United States is the
degree to which income inequality has increased the population of
children who grow up in relative poverty, meaning that America’s
famously abundant wealth does not equally benefit all children.
Economists rate the U.S. economy as one of the most unequal in the
Western world.
The low U.S. rating, then, does not mean that all American children
are worse educated, less healthy and less well-off than all children in,
for example, Greece and Slovakia. After all, many American kids are
doing great. But the report, just as worryingly, means that significant
numbers of American children are so much worse off than the average
Greek or Slovakian child as to bring the overall U.S. average beneath
those other, relatively less wealthy and developed countries.
Here’s a chart showing the rankings, overall and across the five key metrics, for all 29 countries:
Data: UNICEF
Still, the United States did do well on some comparative metrics.
American kids get more exercise than almost any others studied in the
report, but they’re still, by far, the most overweight. (Chalk that up
to American calorie consumption,
which is also one of the world’s highest.) American kids also are the
least likely to drink alcohol — a finding that matches long-standing alcohol consumption patterns
of American adults. According to the World Health Organization,
Americans ages 15 and up have consumed far less alcohol than their
counterparts abroad for decades.
Meanwhile, Canadian children smoke the most marijuana, with more than
one in four reporting they’d lit up in the past year — a period when
Canada continued its national debate on the country’s cannabis laws.
Here’s something that might surprise you: kids in high-achieving
Finland attend preschool less than anyone else, which seems to buck
research linking preschool to later educational and economic success.
But, as the report explains, that statistic is somewhat misleading:
preschool begins later in Finland than it does elsewhere, which throws
off the numbers.
Finally, there are some interesting, if unpleasant, hints on how
Europe’s recent economic crises could impact youth there. In Spain,
Italy and Ireland, more than 10 percent of children ages 15 to 19 are
not enrolled in education, employment or training — a frightening figure
that might reflect post-recession unemployment numbers and which could,
per UNICEF, augur “mental health problems, drug abuse, involvement in
crime, and long-term unemployment and welfare dependence” in the future.
Some of those effects could be playing out in Spain already. More
than half of the surveyed Spanish children said they’d been in a
physical fight within the past year, a huge 15 percent jump from
UNICEF’s 2001 survey. Greece reported a similar jump in the past decade.
Both countries have suffered in the European financial crisis.
As the report notes, these types of statistics are interesting less as a snapshot of the present than a predictor of the future.
“At the heart of the case to be made is the fact that childhood is … a
time in which future patterns and pathways of health and well-being are
being laid down and in which disruption can have lifelong
consequences,” the report concludes. “Protecting the years of childhood
is therefore essential both for the well-being of those who are children
today and for the well-being of the societies of tomorrow.”
Safety in Mexico: Reality vs. Sensationalist Media Hype By Cathy Brown / Dec 12 • Categorized as Living OverseasOriginal Here
In the last few months, I have had the good fortune to visit Mexico a
couple of times. For a single mom whose family and friends have no
problem with me romping around Buenos Aires, taking my young kids to the
Amazon, or climbing mountains in Africa, I cannot say that I was
sufficiently prepared for the distinct reaction I got when people heard I
was going to Mexico:
“You are going where? But what about the cartels?”
“Wow. I wouldn’t go there even if someone paid me”.
“Pretty irresponsible to be going there. You’ re a mother – you shouldn’t be putting yourself into situations like that…”
To which my response was: “Have you ever been to Mexico? Oh, you
haven’t… Well then, please at least tell me specifics as to what this
violence is where I am going. What area is it in, and what specifically
should I be on the lookout for?”
And, shocker…they have no idea. They just know it’s for sure really,
really bad and I am totally going to get kidnapped/raped/shot/then
probably beheaded for good measure.
Let’s work off facts here, not just blatant, misguided, baseless
fear. The US government advises against visiting very specific places
where drug cartels are warring over the billions of dollars made yearly
trading illegal substances into the United States, and the efforts by
the Mexican government to put an end to the drug traffic. Problems come
in when, after hearing “warning” and “Mexico,” all too many Americans
perceive the advisory for the country as a whole, which it clearly is
not. Leslie Bassett, Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in
Mexico City, declared that the intention of the alert is to inform
people of some violent acts that are taking place in specific states of
Mexico. She clarified that in no way does this alert seek to negatively
portray the tourist destinations.
I can’t exactly sense the fear in my friend Fernando here,
who recently visited Mexico for the first time.
Mexico is roughly the size of Western Europe. Of Mexico’s 2,500
municipalities, only 18 have been considered to be a security problem.
Please read that sentence again. Pretty sure that leaves you with a 2482
very safe options if you want to travel to Mexico. Yes, there are
places in Mexico that have had problems with drug violence. But the
majority of Mexico’s organized-crime killings last year took place in a
mere three of Mexico’s 31 states: Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. I
am not here to dispute that there has been and is drug violence in
Mexico. I am here to point out that those specific places are likely
nowhere near where you as a tourist or expat are planning to go.
I would hope you would find it downright silly if you heard a Mexican
saying that they would never, EVER, consider going hiking in Oregon nor
go golfing at Myrtle Beach because they heard reports of there being
drug-related gang violence in South Side LA. Well, you know what? Where
you most likely would be going in Mexico is perhaps further from the
violence, distance-wise, than Oregon is from LA. The bandits are not
going to travel 800 miles to come after you, American tourist drinking
margaritas on the beach or taking pictures at Chichen Itza. They actually
don’t care about you, I am sorry to inform.
Three problem areas to be avoided (Tijuana, Juarez,
and Nuevo Loredo),
and how far these places actually lie
from main tourist areas.
Don’t be stupid. Don’t buy or sell drugs in Mexico. Don’t flash large
amounts of money or jewelry. Don’t visit the specific border towns
notorious for violence. That is a given. Use common sense and you will
be as fine in Mexico as you would in most other tourist destinations
around the world.
Let’s look at some actual statistics from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime: In drug offenses, Mexico recently ranked 12th in the world, and the US 4th. When it came to homocides with firearms, the US ranked 7thand Mexico 17th,
(39.56 per 100,000 vs. Mexico’s 20.6). Yes, that means the US has 92%
more homicides with guns than Mexico. So all of those people in the US
telling you that you will get shot and killed in Mexico should be more
worried about themselves.
Recent FBI statistics show the murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants in
Baltimore is 43.3, Washington D.C. is 29.1 and Detroit is 47. Mexico,
however, which suffered an especially violent year in 2008, recorded a
murder rate of about 10 per 100,000. You do the math…
Travel writer Kyle Ellison put it perfectly when he said: “While I
could rattle statistics off from a slew of different sources, the bottom
line and the main point which needs to be made is that traveling to
Mexico is no more dangerous than living in any major global city. Of the
60 countries I’ve wandered through and after 20+ visits to Mexico, you
know where I’ve felt the most in danger (including when I thought I was kidnapped in Borneo)? When I got lost on the south side of Chicago.”
In the last couple of months, I have personally visited Mexico City,
Queretaro, Puebla, Mazatlan, Baja, and Veracruz. I have had nothing
except phenomenal experiences, met some of the warmest, most welcoming
people, and not for one moment did I feel unsafe in any way. I have
enjoyed scuba and snorkeling, I have rafted, climbed, and hiked to
hidden waterfalls and caves. I have explored archeological ruins, I have
seen gorgeous art and architecture, and I have eaten some of the most
memorable meals of my life. To have missed out on any one of these
experiences because of what I heard from some media outlet needing the
next sensational story would be sad and senseless. I would travel to
Mexico alone, and I would travel with my three small kids. No second
thoughts on that whatsoever.
There was a distinct lack of drug cartel activity as I recently
snorkeled here on the very tranquilo Coronado Island
in the Sea of
Cortez…
Mexico ranks tenth as an international travel destination in the
world and, regardless of the negative media hype, remains the number one
international tourism destination for North Americans traveling abroad.
Many tourists to the country are repeat visitors, which demonstrates
that the vast majority of tourists are satisfied and leave with
overwhelmingly positive impressions.
The Mexican government is expecting 2012 to be a good year for
tourism. In fact, Mexico is expecting 52 million tourists to visit its
five southern states – that compares to 22 million foreign visitors to
all of Mexico in 2011.
If you choose to not visit Mexico in response to media hype, that is
obviously your choice. But just know that there are millions of other
Americans out there living life to the fullest and exploring an amazing
country full of warmth, culture, natural beauty and history, right in
the backyard of the US. I hate to say it, but if you sidestep Mexico due
to fear, it is your loss. As Mark Twain put all so well, “Twenty years
from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do
than by the ones you did do." So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from
the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover. Give Mexico a chance – I am willing to bet you may just end
up falling in love with the country as so many other travelers and
expats have.
Blogger's Notes: (1) My wife and I have lived in Mexico for 8 years now. (2) If you should want to compare the murder rates in Mexico with those in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, go here.
This is a great video showing San Carlos & Guaymas Mexico.
This video produced for San Carlos Marketing a Grupo Caballero company by Abraham Castro "onix" www.onixfx.com.
Blogger's Note: Attesting to this recommendation, we have happily lived here for 7 years now. If the U.S. "mainstream" media has made it sound dangerous to you, please check out my recent post on comparative murder rates in countries, states, and cities of Mexico, the U.S., and the World. You may be surprised.
Information has been leaked about the Trans Pacific Partnership
(TPP), which is being negotiated in secret by US Trade Representative
Ron Kirk. Six hundred corporate “advisors” are in on the know, but not
Congress or the media. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate trade
subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the TPP, has not been permitted
to see the text or to know the content.
The TPP has been called a “one-percenter” power tool. The agreement
essentially abolishes the accountability of foreign corporations to
governments of countries with which they trade. Indeed, the agreement
makes governments accountable to corporations for costs imposed by
regulations, including health, safety and environmental regulations. The
agreement gives corporations the right to make governments pay them for
the cost of complying with the regulations of government. One wonders
how long environmental, labor, and financial regulation can survive when
the costs of compliance are imposed on the taxpayers of countries and
not on the economic activity that results in spillover effects such as
pollution.
Many will interpret the TPP as another big step toward the
establishment of global government in the New World Order. However,
what the TPP actually does is to remove corporations or the spillover
effects of their activities from the reach of government. As the TPP
does not transfer to corporations the power to govern countries, it is
difficult to see how it leads to global government. The real result is
global privilege of the corporate class as a class immune to government
regulation.
One of the provisions allows corporations to avoid the courts and
laws of countries by creating a private tribunal that corporations can
use to sue governments for the costs of complying with regulation.
Essentially, the laws of countries that apply to corporations are
supplanted by decisions of a private tribunal of corporate lawyers.
The TPP is open to all countries. Currently, it is being negotiated
between the US, Australia, Brunei, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam,
Chile, and Peru. Australia, according to reports, has refused to submit
to the private tribunal system.
What are we to make of the TPP? It is perhaps too early to have all
the answers. However, I can offer some ways of thinking about it.
I doubt that the TPP is a New World Order takeover. If anything, the
TPP reduces the scope of global government by exempting corporations
from government control. Also, global government, unless it is
government by the American Empire, is inconsistent with the
neoconservatives insistence on US hegemony over the world. Powerful US
ideological, private, and government interest groups have no intention
of losing the power that they have acquired by being rolled into some
New World Order unless the New World Order is a euphemism for American
Empire.
In the criticisms of the TPP, much emphasis is placed on the costs
that corporations of foreign members of the agreement can impose on the
US. However, US corporations gain the same privileges over those
countries, as the agreement gives every country’s corporations immunity
to the other countries’ laws.
It could be the case that US corporations believe that their
penetration of the other countries will greatly exceed the activities in
the US of Brunei, New Zealand, Peru, et al. However, once Japan,
Canada, China and others join TPP, the prospect of American firms
getting more out of the agreement than foreign firms disappears, unless
from the US perspective the definition of foreign firm includes US
corporations that offshore the production of the goods and services that
they market in the US. If this is the case, then US offshoring firms
would be exempt not only from the laws and courts of foreign countries,
but also exempt from the laws and courts of the US.
This point is possibly moot as the agreement requires all governments
that are parties to the TPP to harmonize their laws so that the new
corporate privileges are equally reflected in every country. To avoid
discriminatory law against a country’s own corporations that do not
engage in foreign trade, harmonization could mean that domestic
corporations would be granted the same privileges as foreign investors.
If not, domestic firms might acquire the privileges by setting up a
foreign subsidiary consisting of an office.
As the TPP is clearly an agreement being pushed by US corporations,
the implication is that US corporations see it as being to their
relative advantage. However, it is unclear what this advantage is.
Alternatively, TPP is a strategy for securing exemption from regulation under the guise of being a trade agreement.
Another explanation, judging from the unusual collection of the
initial parties to the agreement, is that the agreement is part of
Washington’s strategy of encircling China with military bases, as the US
has done to Russia. One would have thought that an agreement of such
path-breaking nature would have begun with Japan, S. Korea, and
Philippines. However, these countries are already part of China’s
encirclement. Brunei, Singapore, New Zealand, and especially Vietnam
would be valuable additions. Are the special privileges that Washington
is offering these countries part of the bribe to become de facto
outposts of American Empire?
Yet another explanation is that Ron Kirk is caught up in the
deregulatory mindset that began with the repeal of Glass-Steagall and
financial deregulation. If financial markets know best and are
self-regulating, requiring no government interference, then so also are
other markets and businesses.
Free market economists view regulations as “takings.” The argument is
that regulations take corporate property–profits, for example, by
making corporations comply with health, safety, and environmental
regulation–just as government takes private property when it builds or
widens a road. Therefore, corporations should be compensated for
takings that result from regulation. As the argument goes, if government
wants corporations to protect the environment, the government should
pay the corporations for the cost of doing so. This argument gets rid of
“external costs” or “social costs”–costs that corporations impose on
others and future generations by the pollution and exhaustion of natural
resources, for example. The argument turns social costs into
compensation for takings.
The TPP is likely serving many agendas. As we learn more, the
motives behind the TPP will become clearer. From my perspective as an
economist and former member of government, the problem with Ron Kirk’s
TPP is that the agreement is constructed to serve private, not public
interests. Kirk is a public official charged with serving and
protecting the public interest. Yet, he has conspired in secret with
private interests to produce a document that exempts private
corporations from public accountability.
There is a paradox here. While financial corporations and now all
corporations are being made independent of government, US citizens have
lost the protection of law and are now subject to being detained
indefinitely or murdered without due process of law. Corporations gain
an unimaginable freedom while citizens lose all freedom and the rights
that define their freedom. Similarly, foreign countries, which as
members of TPP can be exempt from US law, are subject to “pre-emptive”
US violation of their air space and borders by drones and troops sent in
to assassinate some suspected terrorist, but which also kill citizens
of those countries who are merely going about their normal business.
Perhaps one way to understand TPP is that the US government is now
extending its own right to be lawless to corporations. Just as the US
government today is only answerable to itself, the TPP makes
corporations answerable only to themselves.
U.S. border cities prove havens from Mexico's drug violence
By Alan Gomez, Jack Gillum, and Kevin Johnson Updated 7/18/2011 2:15 PM
The picture painted of America's southwestern border with Mexico is a bloody one, in which the drug violence decimating northern Mexico has spilled onto U.S. soil and turned the region into a war zone.
A man crosses Grand Ave. in Nogales, Ariz., near a border
crossing into Mexico. The hill in the background is Mexico.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has warned of human skulls rolling through her state's deserts. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, says violence on the U.S. side of the border is "out of control." Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., has suggested sending a military brigade to protect Americans.
"Of course there is spillover violence along the border," Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said during a recent congressional hearing. "It is not secure and it has never been more violent or dangerous than it is today. Anyone who lives down there will tell you that."
That's not actually the case, according to a USA TODAY analysis that draws upon more than a decade of detailed crime data reported by more than 1,600 local law enforcement agencies in four states, federal crime statistics and interviews along the border from California to Texas.
The analysis found that rates of violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border have been falling for years — even before the U.S. security buildup that has included thousands of law enforcement officers and expansion of a massive fence along the border.
U.S. border cities were statistically safer on average than other cities in their states. Those border cities, big and small, have maintained lower crime rates than the national average, which itself has been falling.
The appearance of an out-of-control border region, though, has had wide-ranging effects — stalling efforts to pass a national immigration reform law, fueling stringent anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, and increasing the amount of federal tax dollars going to build more fencing and add security personnel along the southwestern border.
The perception of rising violence is so engrained that 83% of Americans said they believe the rate of violence along the southwestern border is higher than national rates, according to a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 999 adults.
The findings "are contrary to conventional speculation that the border is an out-of-control place," said Steven Messner, a criminologist and sociology professor at the University at Albany-SUNY, who reviewed USA TODAY's analysis.
Some observers say the numbers don't reflect realities on the ground and give cover to a federal government that is not adequately protecting hundreds of border communities.
"Don't tell me that the violence isn't spilling over," said Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu. "When you have American citizens who don't feel safe in their own home or free in their own country, this should be appalling to everyone."
Others read the numbers as proof the issue of "spillover violence" from Mexico is being exaggerated and used as an impetus for anti-immigration legislation and stepped-up federal and state funding to law enforcement agencies along the border.
"The data really spells out the irresponsibility of many of our elected leaders in their role in this immigration debate," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which backs a plan to legalize some of the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. "This is the ugliest version of the politics of fear that our country has seen for quite a while."
Mining the data
For this story, USA TODAY studied crime trends along the U.S.-Mexico border, using data reported to the FBI from city and county police agencies in the four border states — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
It found that violent crime rates were on average lower in cities within 30, 50 and 100 miles of the border — the distances used to fit various definitions of the "border region." Statisticians interviewed by USA TODAY confirmed the results.
Because the data reported by the local agencies does not include kidnapping, the newspaper also had the FBI review its kidnapping investigations along the border.
Among the major findings:
•The murder rate for cities within 50 miles of the border was lower in nearly every year from 1998 to 2009, compared with the respective state average. For example, California had its lowest murder rate during that time period in 2009, when 5.3 people were murdered per 100,000 residents. In cities within 50 miles of the border, the highest murder rate over that time period occurred in 2003, when 4.6 people were murdered per 100,000 residents.
•The robbery rate for cities within 50 miles of the border was lower each year compared with the state average. In Texas over that time span, the robbery rate ranged from 145 to 173 per 100,000 people in the state, while the robbery rate throughout Texas' border region never rose above 100 per 100,000.
•Kidnapping cases investigated by the FBI along the border are on the decline. The bureau's Southwestern offices identified 62 cartel-related kidnapping cases on U.S. soil that involved cartels or illegal immigrants in 2009. That fell to 25 in 2010 and 10 so far in 2011.
When presented with USA TODAY's findings, a majority of law enforcement officials throughout the border region said the numbers accurately represent what they see.
"Over the last five years, whether you take a look at violent crime or property crime, we've seen a 30% decrease," said Chula Vista (Calif.) Police Chief David Bejarano, whose city is 7 miles from Tijuana.
In Arizona, the epicenter of the immigration debate since the state passed a tough immigration enforcement law last year, some police officials are frustrated by the rhetoric.
"Everything looks really good, which is why it's so distressing and frustrating to read about these reports about crime going up everywhere along the border, when I know for a fact that the numbers don't support those allegations," Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor said.
And in Texas, El Paso has seen sharp declines in violent crimes despite being in the shadow of Ciudad Juárez, one of the main battlegrounds of Mexico's drug wars where 3,400 people were murdered last year.
"I'm not trying to paint a picture here that nothing ever happens, because it does," El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said. "But some have tried to suggest that El Paso is a violent city just because of its location. Unfortunately, some people's misperceptions have become their reality."
Unreported crime
Critics express doubts about the credibility of the FBI data, known as the Uniform Crime Reports, the government's only national repository for local crime data.
One concern is that many crimes go unreported, and the FBI reports don't include some of the money-making crimes used frequently by Mexican drug cartels: kidnapping and extortion.
"There's actually a private industry that negotiates ransoms with kidnappers," said San Diego Sheriff's Dept. Capt. David Myers, who heads the office's Border Crime Suppression Team. "There are actual people you can call who can negotiate that ransom for you if your loved ones have been kidnapped, without involving law enforcement."
But the available data indicate kidnappings are on the decline.
FBI Assistant Director Kevin Perkins, who heads the agency's criminal investigative division, said crime statistics reported by border communities and daily contacts with local officials do not show surges in such crimes as kidnapping and extortion.
"We don't see giant spikes in violence," Perkins said.
Others say crime reports don't reflect the measure of the crime along the border.
U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco, a Texas Republican, joined Miller and McCaul in proposing a bill that would require Homeland Security to track border-related crimes to better account for kidnappings, property-related crimes and simple acts of trespassing when farmers and ranchers encounter smugglers crossing their lands.
"There is spillover crime," Canseco said. "We need to be able to measure it."
Critics also point to high-profile killings in the border region as proof that the cartel violence is spilling over.
For example, on March 27, 2010, Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was murdered. The killing remains unsolved, but the case sparked outrage from advocates of increased immigration enforcement who suspect that the murder was committed by an illegal immigrant.
Partly based on that case and others, the image of the U.S. side of the southwestern border as a lawless region reminiscent of the Wild West lives on.
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore visited Washington in November to brief members of Congress and found himself battling misconceptions.
"A lot of it was anecdotal information that was not based on fact," he said.
Angela Kelley, vice president of the Center for American Progress, a group pushing for immigration reform legislation that would allow some illegal immigrants a way to become citizens, said the perceived connection between immigrants and crime makes it impossible for Congress to reach a rational solution for the country's broken immigration system.
"There's this conflation that some like to make between crime rates and immigrants, and throw in there guns and drugs and violence generally," Kelley said. "It's very toxic and it impacts the debate in such a substantial way that you can't have a responsible debate about what does work."
The toll of extra security
Starting with the administration of President George W. Bush, money flowing to the southwestern border has substantially increased.
In 2000, there were fewer than 9,000 Customs and Border Patrol agents and officers patrolling the border. By 2010, that number was nearly 23,000. Homeland Security has increased funding for border security and interior enforcement by more than $5 billion since 2006, with most of that going to the southwestern border.
Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, both Republicans from Arizona, have endorsed a 10-point plan that would deploy 3,000 National Guard troops, increase funding for local law enforcement agencies by $60 million and add more fencing.
"While our border with Mexico has always seen some level of illegal immigration, it has not seen the powerful threat of deadly violence that exists today due to Mexico's ongoing war against its drug cartels," McCain told a group of border sheriffs last year.
Others think the nation already has the appropriate level of security along the border and should shift some of the funding toward easing the gridlock that exists for those trying to get through the built-up border.
Crossing back and forth used to be simple, but the added layers of security and teams of Border Patrol officers inspecting vehicles and people coming into the country have caused hours-long delays for people legally entering the USA through the points of entry along the southwestern border, according to a report from the San Diego Association of Governments.
Those delays lead to slowed business production as freight trucks carrying goods to the U.S. are held up, and discourage many Mexicans from crossing into the USA to shop as they once did, according to the report. Put together, those delays cost California about $1 billion in revenue in 2007, the report found.
San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez said some of the money going to border security should instead be going to expanding the existing ports of entry and adding new ones to allow the state's already-hurting economy a chance to recover.
However, he said, the image of a lawless border makes it hard to even discuss the topic.
"When you've got the national rhetoric about illegal immigration, you can never get to a conversation about legal immigration," Alvarez said. "Effective border crossings and better regional economics don't sell newspapers."
Contributing: Gomez reported from San Diego; Gillum from Tucson; and Johnson from El Paso and Ciudad Ju?rez, Mexico.
