Recently the violent war being waged between Mexico’s federal government and drug cartels along the US-Mexican border has been spilling over onto US soil.
To help combat this latest crisis, the Obama Administration has fallen back on an old idea with a new name, that idea is the creation of a “Border Czar” position within the Administration. Actually, the official name of the position will be the "DHS Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs," but “Border Czar” is much shorter and a lot catchier. Call it what you may, this is still old idea going by a new name, so much so, that the person picked to fill it has held the position before.
Enter Alan Bersin. Bersin, the man tapped to be the new Border Czar, once served as “the Attorney General’s Southwest Border Representative” during the Clinton Administration (1995-1998). At the time it was an appointment which may have had as much to do with his decades long friendship with the Clintons, than with real experience, since Bersin had spent most of his life practicing law in the private sector.
During the Clinton years, Bersin answered to Attorney General Janet Reno. Going forward, he will be answering to, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Though a novice his last go around, Bersin, will at least now have experience working with local and state officials, as well as international partners, in this latest chapter of the war on drugs.
Sure, Bersin will have other functions to include promoting commerce and trade, but who is kidding who, his focus will be on making our borders safe. Bersin will have an eager friend in Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Calderon has been waging a wide open battle on the drug cartels that currently infect his country, and which makes Mexico the launching pad for drug trafficked into the United States. During Calderon’s war of the cartels it has been estimated that over 10,600 people have been killed in the drug-related violence. The most recent out break of violence being a gun battle between the Mexican military and drug traffickers in the mountainous region of the Guerrero, that took the life of 15 perpetrators and a soldier this week. A week in which Obama will be visiting Mexico to discuss the ongoing border issues.
Yet it remains to be seen what impact, Bersin will have on this growing problem. His last tenure as Border Czar yielded a mix bag of results. Included in the results was his implementation of “Operation Gatekeeper,” a program that fortified the borders near San Diego in an effort to stop the flow of illegal crossings into the US. While some hailed the program, critics of Bersin point out that it only serve to move the problem further east. It is also interesting to note that during his first run as Border Czar, that the budget for the Immigration and Naturalization Services was more than doubled, leading to an increase in Border Patrol agents and border fencing to help combat the problem.
While only time will tell if the re-instatement of Bersin will have the desired effects on the war on drugs this time around, it may be safe to say that the position of “Border Czar” will be sticking around this time.
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