The need for stronger border security has been validated from the unlikeliest of places: Univision, where a recent news report shows how drugs continue to systematically "pour in" to the country.
Watch as Univision reports on the "burreros", the name given unauthorized immigrants who agree to carry a marijuana-laden backpack across the border in exchange for food, cartel protection, and money once the freight has safely arrived on American soil:
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: A backpack full of marijuana is the ticket for crossing without many problems.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT: Because the backpack is the ticket. Without it, you can't get to Phoenix.
ULTRERAS: Drug traffickers are making a deal with immigrants who don't have money to pay for a guide (coyote). The drug dealers provide a guide and food. And when the drugs arrive to their destination, they let them (the unauthorized drug-carrying immigrants) go and give them money.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT: For us, it's our ticket to come over. In addition, we go safely. They care for us, and they pay us.
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This side of the immigration conversation typically goes virtually unspoken at Univision, given the network's record of bias in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. I'm old enough to remember when Univision rushed to book Congressman Steve King (IA) so that he and Jorge Ramos could yell at each other over "calves like cantaloupes" on the network's weekly Al Punto program. And while only Rep. King knows how he arrived at his 100-1 ratio of criminals to valedictorians, there is no denying that criminal elements exist - which justify the need for greater security along our southern border. "They are bringing drugs", indeed.
Below is a fuller transcript of the cited report as it aired on Noticiero Univision:
PEDRO ULTRERAS, CORRESPONDENT, UNIVISION: The Arizona desert is the gateway of entry into the United Stated for thousands of undocumenteds. And a backpack full of marijuana is the ticket for crossing without many problems.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT: Because the backpack is the ticket. Without it, you can't get to Phoenix.
ULTRERAS: Drug traffickers are making a deal with immigrants who don't have money to pay for a guide (coyote). The drug dealers provide a guide and food. And when the drugs arrive to their destination, they let them (the unauthorized drug-carrying immigrants) go and give them money.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT #1: For us, it's our ticket to come over. In addition, we go safely. They care for us, and they pay us. And so it's not bad for us - they pay us.
ULTRERAS: The "Burrero Border", as they've begun to call Sonoyta in Sonora, Mexico, is where this phenomenon is most frequently seen. Many Central Americans come to be lured by the offer.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT #2: We don't lose anything by trying.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT #3: It's a good option, it's a good option - supposedly.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT #2: It's an alternative for many, because on the other borders, brother, it's been the case that if you don't have money - they go and cut your head off.
ULTRERAS: This video was given to us by one of the burreros that recorded it a couple of weeks ago. Interestingly, many enjoy the work and they forget all about the American Dream in order to stay on as Burreros.
ULTRERAS: For example - this backpack weighs approximately fifteen pounds. The one they carry with drugs weighs forty pounds. Additionally, they have to carry at least four gallons of water such as these, and an additional backpack for food. This is a total of about 70 or 80 pounds that they carry on their backs, on a desert trek that could take them from seven to ten days.
ULTRERAS This region of Arizona is known as the Drug Corridor. It is a desert and mountainous region. Phoenix is 150 miles away, and they walk there with the packs on their backs.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT #1: Our need is greater than our fear of the weight, or of the route, (or) immigration:
ULTRERAS: Immigrants are openly recruited in the streets or outside the shelters, and it is increasingly common. They come searching for the backpack as their only ticket. they say that nothing will stop them from getting to the United States.
UNAUTHORIZED DRUG-CARRYING IMMIGRANT #4: It doesn't matter if blood is running down my back, but the mission is to be in the United States.
ULTRERAS: In Sonoyta, Sonora, Mexico - Pedro Ultreras, Univision.
