When states cooperate, we all lose. The one saving feature of the Southwest Border is that Mexico has let people—and their stuff—cross freely into Mexico. Just walk across or drive across—up until now. The overarching empire now thinks that Mexico needs to up its game and more fully partake in the process of stealing from and crushing the humans.
It has been incremental. Several years ago, DHS started defying “legality” by quietly and randomly searching people leaving the U.S. going into Mexico. Now it is a semi-permanent fixture with dedicated areas for “southbound searches.” Seizures are made on such rationale as “guns are illegal in Mexico so we are going to take them from you in the U.S. as you are about to leave.” This is also done in the state of Arizona that has the best / freest gun laws in the United States. All weapons are legal under Arizona law—machine guns, silencers, grenades, whatever. Yet, DHS has been taking guns that are legal in the U.S. Why? Because they are on the cusp of leaving the U.S. and crossing into a country where they are “illegal.”
Cash is a slightly different, but equally mind-boggling story. Previously, signs told incomers to declare cash in excess of $10,000 upon entering the U.S. Now, the same signs are displayed to exiting traffic and cash is routinely taken by DHS upon departure from the U.S. Even amounts less than $10,000 are taken because, you know, why would anyone take cash anywhere? Law enforcement has been pounding this into everyone’s heads for decades now. Cash transactions are suspicious. So, they just take the cash now at the border that is leaving the country and require you to jump through hurdles to prove your innocence if you want to contest the seizure. There is no need to charge or convict anyone; just catch-seize-and-release. It is especially weird to walk through a “southbound” DHS search and interrogation (a right they claim under their “border search authority” even though you are leaving) and then walk right into Mexico with no Mexican official saying a word to you or making a demand. The seizures are often turned over to willing local agencies after the search is made under supposed DHS authority. Aren’t Americans smarter than this? Don’t they see what is going on?
How easily people call for an Iron Curtain to take away their own liberties because of some false promises of a better life for all.
The most recent phase has come in two increments. First the U.S. under a “pilot program,” that has now been deemed a fantastic success, began installing Mexican officials at U.S. border search facilities in the U.S. to “expedite” searches and screening for both nations of commercial vehicle traffic coming into the U.S. Now, lo and behold, the great new program ram-rodded by the U.S. will have Mexican and U.S. authorities searching commercial vehicles jointly that are leaving the U.S. as well. DHS, no doubt, hopes that these joint southbound searches will lend some credibility to the unscrupulous southbound searches and seizures that DHS has already been doing. Since DHS has been pretending to have some authority to do searches and seizures for movements going into Mexico, they might as well get the non-searching Mexican authorities to work in DHS office buildings and require them to legitimize what the U.S. government is already doing. It’s a win-win for the thieving elite.
