I am thankful that we have a Coast Guard. But I wanted to point out a new situation here in San Diego. There have been a rash of boats from "out-of-the-country" landing unauthorized on our local beaches. The boats are abandoned in the middle of the night along our coastline; at waterfront parks, beaches. Witness’s say several unidentified people jump out of these boats and run down the street and jump into waiting vans. They are obviously illegal aliens. Is this a new trend? And how are we going to stop it?
December 10, 2007 12:51 PM
Today marks another milestone in Coast Guard history. This afternoon, I joined Director John Walters of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and Mike Braun, Chief of Operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration, to announce that the Coast Guard seized more than 350,000 pounds of cocaine at sea this year, a record-breaking 160 metric tons worth an estimated street value of more than $4.7 billion. That’s half of the Coast Guard’s annual budget and surpasses all of our previous seizure records.
Our success is the direct result of Coast Guard men and women doing the hard things expected of those who “guard our coasts.” Every day, we execute this dangerous mission hundreds of miles from our borders to keep illegal drugs from reaching our shores where they threaten our families, our schools, and our communities here at home.
We are not alone in our efforts. We have tremendous cooperation among more than two dozen other nations throughout the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific that make up the transit zone. Together with our federal law enforcement partners, Department of Defense counterparts, the Joint Interagency Task Force South, and 26 other nations in and around the transit zone, we are sharing more intelligence and rapidly deploying interdiction forces to seize more drugs than we ever have before. Whether suspected smugglers transit far offshore on the high seas to avoid detection or seek refuge in the territorial waters of coastal states, they ultimately cannot hide from the sights of our international partners who share in our determination to rid ourselves of this transnational threat to our collective safety and security.
We have the best interagency coordination and collaboration among our federal law enforcement partners and Department of Defense counterparts I have seen in more than 35 years in law enforcement. Following each successful seizure, our joint task forces for investigating and prosecuting drug cases, like Operation Panama Express, produce real-time, actionable intelligence to continuously improve our targeting. Our intelligence-based operations are great examples of the kind of interagency teamwork and coordination that exists among Customs and Border Protection,ICE, DEA, the Coast Guard, and other Homeland Security and Department of Justice agencies. This intelligence and information sharing among federal, state, local and international organizations is unprecedented and is shutting down drug traffickers.
New interdiction tools and tactics are forcing drug smugglers to go to greater lengths to change their own tactics in an effort to avoid detection and interdiction at sea. Smugglers are secreting cocaine into liquids, employing semi-submersible vessels that float just above the surface, and using less-traveled, lengthier routes far into the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to hide and evade law enforcement. Today, we are employing some of the most sophisticated, interoperable and capable hardware in our history to interdict smugglers at sea. Naval combatants from the U.S., Denmark, Great Britain and France routinely embark Coast Guard law enforcement teams for counterdrug patrols.
Our counterdrug strategy is working as we see growing amounts of drugs seized before they reach our shores. While the numbers are impressive, they don’t tell the whole story. The impact of these efforts is also unprecedented. This is made clear by the reduced supply of cocaine observed in more than 35 major cities throughout the United States.
In the last ten years alone, the Coast Guard has seized more than two million pounds of cocaine. With interagency teamwork, collaboration with our international partners, and ever-more effective tools and tactics, we will continue to tighten the web of detection and interdiction at sea, as we secure our maritime borders and keep illegal drugs out of the country.
For more than 200 years, the Coast Guard has been enforcing our nation’s laws and protecting our borders. Make no mistake about it: Our courageous men and women in law enforcement and those who support them are having a real impact on drug smugglers today. We can all sleep a little more soundly knowing the Coast Guard is on patrol.
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Close this window Jump to comment formI am thankful that we have a Coast Guard. But I wanted to point out a new situation here in San Diego. There have been a rash of boats from "out-of-the-country" landing unauthorized on our local beaches. The boats are abandoned in the middle of the night along our coastline; at waterfront parks, beaches. Witness’s say several unidentified people jump out of these boats and run down the street and jump into waiting vans. They are obviously illegal aliens.
Is this a new trend? And how are we going to stop it?
December 10, 2007 12:51 PM