Andy Ramirez: How Many Border Tunnels Have Gone Undiscovered?

The tunnel reportedly was in use for at least a month before it was discovered. Andy Ramirez asks: “Why did it take so long for U.S. law enforcement agencies to locate it and then take it down?” He points out that the tunnel was only discovered indirectly, after a canine unit at a routine truck inspection 70 miles inside California, detected a 10-ton drug shipment aboard a northbound truck.

Ramirez notes that his organization, Friends of the Border Patrol, had offered to provide electronic tunnel-detection gear — for free — to the Border Patrol in April 2006. But the generous offer had been refused by the Bush administration; the same administration which, it may be remembered, was doing everything possible to push amnesty for illegal aliens and to prosecute Border Patrol officers for performing their sworn duties to protect the border. How many drug cartel tunnels have gone undiscovered because of the federal government’s refusal to employ the readily available technology? How many tons of drugs have flooded our streets as a result? As Ramirez points out, the tunnels are used not only to smuggle drugs, but also to smuggle people, arms, and other contraband. They also can be used to smuggle terrorists into the United States — and perhaps have already been used for that purpose. Why is the federal government so willing to subject every American to the most intrusive, demeaning, and unconstitutional body searches at airports, but unwilling to enforce our borders?

Andy Ramirez is founder and president of the Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council, as well as founder and president of Friends of the Border Patrol. Liberty News Network is an affiliated news group of The John Birch Society and The New American magazine.