Who are the drug smugglers running illicit contraband across the US-Mexico border? According to a new study of by the Center for Investigative Reporting, they’re mostly Americans.
CIR combed arrest records surrounding over 80,000 drug seizures from 2005 to 2011 and found that a full 80 percent of the arrests in which there was data available involved at least one American citizen.
Despite this ratio, the report noted that the US Border Patrol’s press releases trumpeted arrests of foreign suspects at a disproportionate rate — 38 percent mentioned a Mexican citizen had been caught, while just 30 percent noted an American citizen was arrested. The rest did not mention their nationality.
