Southwest Border Counter Narcotic Strategy

CJUS687-1401B-01

Instructor:

22 March, 2014

Key Assignment

Abstract

Throughout this assignment, I will be developing an issue that is currently arising with the Southwest Border and address the background, key stakeholder positions, facts and assumptions, the course of action’s that have been considered, the findings, and my recommendations.

Key Assignment

For many years there have been major issues arising with the Southwest Border (SWB). Major terrorist and criminal organizations are constantly bringing in drugs, narcotics, and even weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s). How do we prevent these organizations from crossing the United States Border? A closer look at this problem will show the implications and the implementations that the United States has taken to ensure border safety in America (Baker, 2014).

The background of this issue begins when Mexican citizens began crossing into the United States many years ago. It wasn’t until major amounts of narcotics started being brought into our Nation that we knew we would have to take action. The National Southwest Border Counternarcotic (NSWBCN) Strategy was implemented.

This policy outlined many different aspects of technology, airtime and marine time correlation between numerous agencies (Herchek, 2013). These agencies consisted of numerous stakeholders, which included departments of the DHS, tribal, local, state, and Federal law enforcement. These stakeholders played a key role in combating the issues with the SWB.

One of these stakeholders was the Fusion Center that correlates with the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in Virginia. This location is employed by state officials who communicate with the NCTC data and information referencing terrorist and criminal organizations. Both of these centers are currently operational and functional within the United States distributing information data sharing nationwide (Billing, 2014).

The assumptions are that there would...