BORDER PATROLS ON NORTH AND SOUTH ARE NECESSARY

U.S. borders, to the north and south, are plagued with illegal drug
trafficking. The problems in the south are easily recognized. Those in the
north are harder to get Congress to look at, let alone spend more money on.
All borders require their fair amount of patrolling to limit the number of
drugs entering this country.

The Mexican border is riddled with drug transactions and corrupt officers.
The situation is so bad, it recently made a joke out of a beefed up
U.S.-Mexico effort to fight the drug war. Stories are leaking out of the
border about Mexican officers stealing confiscated cocaine and selling it
on the streets, accepting bribes from drug traffickers and kidnapping a DEA
informant. It seems no matter how elite the officers are, there's a price
they'll accept to look the other way, or worse.

The idea was to create Bilateral Border Task Forces between Mexico and the
U.S. The U.S. gave a great deal of money to create these entities stationed
at key locations on the border. Mexico didn't start paying its share until
last September. The two government forces were supposed to work together to
make sure drugs didn't move in or out of either country. But there were so
many problems coordinating the two very different forces, the forces
haven't really been implemented.

For an unexplained reason, Mexican officials aren't permitting American
DEA, FBI and Customs Service officials to carry weapons into Mexico. U.S.
officers stopped crossing the border for their own protection and as a
protest of the corruption among the Mexican officers. The problems with
these forces may go far beyond individual officers' actions. In a recent
Washington Post story, the Mexican deputy attorney general for
international affairs says the task forces are "fully equipped and fully
operational." Sen. Diane Feinstein, however, says the task forces won't be
considered operational until U.S. officers can carry their own weapons.
Perhaps the mission needs to be drastically redefined and made clear on all
sides.

While the personal conflict on the southern border continues, last week
President Clinton declared Mexico a fully cooperating member in the war
against drugs. Some members of Congress are trying to overturn Mexico's new
status, but it's not likely they'll succeed. That's fine. The future of the
drug war and cooperation with Mexico is a delicate situation. It will take
extreme diplomacy on behalf of the president, mixed in with a little anger
from Congress.

While the Mexican border gets all the attention, there's plenty of problems
to throw money at on the northern border. Washington and Michigan,
particularly, are being as vocal as possible in getting their fellow
congressional members to look up and realize drugs are coming in from all
sides of the country. In fact, Rep. Jack Metcalf's staff has concluded that
the rate of increase in drug trafficking is much higher on Washington's
border than California's. We have a relatively new problem that could be
nipped before it's out of hand, if it's stopped soon.

Unfortunately, congressional members from the northern states are fighting
to just maintain the current number of border patrol officers, let alone
ask for more. And, when they do succeed in getting more money for border
patrol, it always seems to slip down to the south.

It shouldn't take the northern border getting as bad as the southern before
Congress realizes the problem is more systemic than just Mexico. If
Congress is serious about the war on drugs, it better look all around, not
just down.