By Scott Stewart
Stratfor Security Weekly
On July 21, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced he was deploying 1,000
members of the Texas National Guard to the Mexican border to help
strengthen border security. The move is the latest in a chain of events
involving the emigration of Central Americans that has become heavily
publicized -- and politicized.
Clearly, illegal immigration flows are shifting from Arizona and
California to Texas. In fiscal year 2013 (all Border Patrol data is
recorded by fiscal year), the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector
surpassed Tucson as the leading sector for the number of apprehensions
(154,453 in Rio Grande Valley versus 120,939 for Tucson). Also, between
fiscal years 2011 and 2013, the number of Border Patrol determined
"other than Mexicans" -- mostly Central Americans -- apprehended by the
Rio Grande Valley sector increased by more than 360 percent, from 20,890
to 96,829. (By comparison, the Tucson sector apprehended 19,847 "other
than Mexicans" in 2013.) Significantly, minors constituted a large
percentage of the "other than Mexicans" apprehended in the Rio Grande
Valley in 2013: 21,553 (compared to 9,070 in Tucson sector). However,
the majority (84 percent) of those labeled Unaccompanied Alien Children
by the Border Patrol are teenage minors and not younger children.
Lost in all the media hype over this "border crisis" is the fact that
in 2013 overall immigration was down significantly from historical
levels. According to U.S. Border Patrol apprehension statistics, there
were only 420,789 apprehensions in 2013 compared to 1,160,395 in 2004.
In fact, from fiscal 1976 to 2010, apprehensions never dropped below
500,000. During that same period, the Border Patrol averaged 1,083,495
apprehensions per year compared to just 420,789 last year.
Of course, apprehension statistics are not an accurate count of total
immigration and do not account for those who cross without being
caught, and the statistics are also slightly skewed by the fact that
Unaccompanied Alien Minors are far more likely to surrender to
authorities rather than attempt to avoid them. In 2011, the Border
Patrol apprehended 4,059 unaccompanied children; by 2013 that number had
reached 38,759. Year to date, the Border Patrol has apprehended more
than 46,000 unaccompanied children and estimates it will apprehend
around 60,000 total in 2014. Still, overall, the Border Patrol will
apprehend and process hundreds of thousands fewer people this year than
it did each fiscal year from 1976 until 2010.
This type of hype and politicization of the U.S.-Mexico border is not
new. It is something that has surfaced at irregular intervals for years
now, along with scaremongering using the boogeyman of terrorism, and it
appears to be happening again.
I've recently done a number of media interviews regarding
immigration, and during several of these interviews, reporters have
asked me the question: "Does the crisis on the border give terrorists an
opportunity to sneak into the country?" While other border security
analysts have told reporters that they believe terrorists would take
advantage of the border crisis and that the cartels would be willing to
work with terrorists for the right price, I disagree. I believe that an
analysis of the history of plots directed against the U.S. homeland from
overseas and an examination of the changes in the dynamics of
transnational terrorism show such claims to be unfounded.
No Link to the U.S.-Mexico Border
As chaos has wracked Mexican towns just south of the U.S. border such
as Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, Juarez and Tijuana, there has been repeated
speculation that al Qaeda could partner with some street gang or Mexican
cartel to smuggle terrorist operatives or weapons into the United
States to conduct a spectacular terrorist attack.
For example, in 2005, rumors were frequently published on a popular
web media outlet claiming that al Qaeda had smuggled several tactical
nuclear devices into the United States with the help of the Salvadoran
Mara Salvatrucha street gang. According to the rumors, al Qaeda was
planning to launch a
horrific surprise nuclear attack against several U.S. cities in what was termed "American Hiroshima." Clearly this never happened.
But American fearmongers are not the only ones who can cause a panic.
In a 2009 speech, radical Kuwaiti university professor Abdullah
al-Nafisi talked about the possibility that jihadists could smuggle
anthrax in a suitcase through a drug tunnel on the U.S.-Mexico border, a
claim that sparked considerable concern because it came on the heels of
other
hyped-up anthrax threats.
However, an examination of all jihadist plots since the first such
attack in the United States -- the November 1990 assassination of the
radical founder of the Jewish Defense League, Meir Kahane -- shows that
none had any U.S.-Mexico border link. Indeed, as we've noted elsewhere,
there have been more plots against the U.S. homeland
that have involved the U.S.-Canada border,
including the 1997 plot to bomb the New York Subway and the Millennium
Bomb Plot. But by and large, most terrorists, including those behind the
1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 attacks, have entered the
United States by flying directly to the country. There is not one
jihadist attack or thwarted plot in which Mexican criminal organizations
smuggled the operative into the United States.
There was one bumbling plot by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps in which Manssor Arbabsiar, a U.S. citizen born in Iran and
residing in Texas, traveled to Mexico in an attempt to contract a
team of Mexican cartel hit men to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Instead
of Los Zetas, he encountered a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
informant and was set up for a sting. There is no evidence that an
actual Mexican cartel leader would have accepted the money Arbabsiar
offered for the assassination.
Mexican criminal leaders have witnessed U.S. government operations
against al Qaeda and the pressure that the U.S. government can put on an
organization that has been involved in an attack on the U.S. homeland.
Mexican organized crime bosses are businessmen, and even if they were
morally willing to work with terrorists -- a questionable assumption --
working with a terrorist group would be bad for business. It is quite
doubtful that Mexican crime bosses would risk their multibillion-dollar
smuggling empires for a one-time payment from a terrorist group. It is
also doubtful that an ideologically driven militant group like a
jihadist organization would trust a Mexican criminal organization with
its weapons and personnel.
Changes in Terrorist Dynamics
Another factor to consider is the changes in the way militant groups
have operated against the United States since 9/11. Because of increased
counterterrorism operations and changes in immigration policies
intended to help combat terrorist travel, it has become increasingly
difficult for terrorist groups to get trained operatives into the United
States.
Even jihadist groups such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have
been forced to undertake remote operations involving bombs placed aboard
aircraft overseas rather than placing operatives in the country. This
indicates that
the group does not have the ability or the network to support such operatives. In addition to remote operations launched from its base in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has also
undertaken efforts to radicalize grassroots operatives residing in the United States, equipping them with easy-to-follow instructions for attack through its
English-language magazine, Inspire.
This focus on radicalizing and equipping grassroots operatives is
also reflected in the fact that the majority of the attacks and failed
plots inside the United States since 2001 have involved such grassroots
operatives rather than trained terrorists. These operatives are either
U.S. citizens, such as Nidal Hasan, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Faisal
Shahzad, or resident aliens such as Najibullah Zazi. Failed shoe bomber
Richard Reid was traveling on a British passport (no U.S. visa required)
and the would-be underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had
obtained a valid U.S. visa. The operatives had the ability to legally
reside in the United States or to enter the country legally without
having to sneak across the border from Mexico.
Could a terrorist operative take advantage of the U.S.-Mexico border?
Possibly. Is one likely to attempt such a crossing when so much
publicity and extra enforcement has been directed to that border?
Probably not.
