49 Bodies Found on Mexican Border

    Recently police discovered 49 bodies on the border between San Juan Mexico and McAllen Texas. These bodies were mostly male, and many of the bodies were missing arms, feet, or legs, and they were decapitated. These brutal murders are thought to be drug cartel murders, resulting from rival cartels fighting over territory. (Fox News). These types of murders are not uncommon, they have been occurring over the years across Mexico. Fox Reports that "Drug violence has killed more than 47,500 people since Calderon launched a stepped-up offense when he took office in December 2006".
    When we see this type of activity in some "third world" countries we often feel like we need to do something to stop it, nearly fifty thousand murders related to drug crime is something that we cannot ignore, and yet we are ignoring it. We report on the drug problems in Mexico and the crime associated with it, but we do not try to seek ways to help stop this, nor do we recognize this as a possible reason for people to want to leave Mexico to live here. I wish to point out what the definition of refugee is "a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution". I argue that there are many people fleeing the country of Mexico for reasons we do not understand because we are not living in the middle of a huge drug war claiming thousands of lives.

     My claim is not to say that all people coming to this country from Mexico are fleeing for their lives, I simply wish to recognize it as a possible cause from some. Others may come to seek financial stability because their likelihoods have been destroyed by programs such as NAFTA, or because they wish to provide their families with education and opportunity that they are unable to provide in their home country. However, we must recognize the drug war as a real war, people who live in areas int he United States where gang activity is high will often claim the areas as "war-zones", simply because the danger is real, the murder and death is real, and the fear is there 24/7.
    Many of us cannot relate to this, if in the United States we found almost 50 decapitated bodies near the highway we wouldn't know how to process it. We have no idea what that kind of life is like, to find bodies brutally murdered in the streets, to find mass graves, to have entire cities being controlled by cartel operations. We don't know this life, this world, but we are contributors to it.
     I will never forget a quote I heard on either the National Geographic show Border Wars or the History channel show Gangland, a man stated that "we always say Mexico is the country with the drug problems, but in reality it is the United States with the drug problems, because without us to purchase the drugs there would be no need to sell them". This has stuck in my mind so strongly, a point that never is spoken on any news media channel, a point that is never presented in the debate of border security, a point we choose to ignore because it is easier to place the blame on Mexico and their corruption.
    It is much easier to say that drug cartels sneak drugs into this country, that they commit murders, that they create violence, that they fuel the gang activity that is overflowing into our country, that they create the need for further enforcement at the borders, and it is easy to imply that all illegals coming into this country are somehow associated with the criminal activity of these cartels even when they are not. However, it is not easy to accept our own role in this image, as the root cause of the problem, as the ones demanding the supply of drugs which in turn creates the cartels and the violence that accompanies them. We disconnect ourselves from the issue and tell ourselves a little marijuana is okay because it does not hurt anyone, quickly failing to recognize where those drugs came from and the many bodies that were hurt or killed for that leaf.

    It is easy to call those who illegally cross our borders as criminals, to simply say they broke our laws and they need to be deported, but it will never stop unless we think about why they might be risking their lives to cross a desert to be here. It must be pretty bad back at home when you are willing to risk your life to come and work as near slaves for very little in wages, living in constant fear of being sent back, if that doesn't sound like a refugee then what does? Mexico is dealing with a full blow drug war, this is eveident with the report that " In less than a month, the mutilated bodies of 14 men were left in a van in downtown Nuevo Laredo, 23 people were found hanged or decapitated in the same border city and 18 dismembered bodies were left near Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara."
    In order to get control of the illegal immigration in this country we must recognize the signs of why it is occurring and why it is occurring from some countries more than others. We need to look at today's headlines about the 49 bodies found along the border and think about how it is interconnected with illegal immigration and realize that there are many more layers to it than may appear.