Montana News
The basics of immigration, crime and borders for Montana voters
Politicians have a lot to say about drug smuggling at the southern border and whether it’s tied to immigration. So we’re going to take a few minutes to hear how Montanans’ views are shaped by political rhetoric and whether they reflect what’s really happening.
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
With Montana News, I'm Austin Amestoy. Montana Public Radio is bringing you listener-powered reporting this election season. Politicians have a lot to say about drug smuggling at the southern border and whether it's tied to immigration. So we're going to take a few minutes to hear how Montana's views are shaped by political rhetoric and whether they reflect what's actually happening. I've got MTPR health care reporter, Aaron Bolton, here with me to break it all down. Hi, Aaron. Hey, Austin. So, Aaron, what are voters here most concerned about when it comes to the southern border? This spring, voters on both the right and left told MTPR they worry about drugs, specifically fentanyl coming across the border. Judy Wickham is a 70-year-old retired nurse from Chester. She thinks migrants crossing the border are a problem and says Republicans will reduce that flow with tighter border restrictions. And it's sad. I mean, some of them are probably legit people that really want to make a new life for themselves, but a lot of them, I think, are criminals and people who just want to cause trouble. That's a view you commonly hear from Republican voters. Laura Buffalo is 23 years old and says she supports Democrats. She lives in Box Elder near the Rocky Boys' reservation. Buffalo is less concerned about the people who are crossing the border. She says it's locals who are proliferating drugs, and it scares her. The fear of drugs getting in the way, whether that's you getting caught in them or being surrounded by it. She wants more local resources to reduce drugs in her community and to help people with addiction. Okay, I'm hearing there are concerns of migrants bringing drugs across the border and the need for more resources to help people with addiction. Are these concerns from voters in line with what we're hearing from political candidates? I think you hear talk about the southern border the most in Montana's U.S. Senate and state attorney general races. Current attorney general Austin Knudson is in lockstep with voters like Wickham. Here's Knudson talking on News Nation. And until the federal government gets serious about enforcing that southern border and it's immigration policies, we're just going to keep seeing more and more of this. Knudson has regularly made arguments in court that migrants and cartel members directly bring drugs across the border between ports of entry and then sell them inside the U.S. Democrat Ben Ullke, like a lot of Democrats, has shifted a bit to the middle saying border security is an issue. But Ullke on Montana PBS said he would focus on what he could change in Montana. We need to do a better job with basic law enforcement that affects our communities. And you know, Aaron, as we've heard in a plethora of political ads this season, Senator John Tester is also making the case for border security. Yeah, yeah. Here's an example of one from earlier this year. John Tester worked with Republicans fighting to shut down the border, target fentanyl traffickers, and add hundreds of new border patrol agents. The key difference between what you're hearing from the Tester campaign and Republicans is tying drugs directly to migrants. Here's Senate candidate Tim Sheehy on Fox News. In some cases, 10,000, 20,000 migrants a day coming here, bringing drugs, bringing crime with them. Well, let's start with how drugs cross the border. Aaron, are drugs being smuggled through tunnels or in the vast open spaces between ports of entry? The short answer is no. That may happen at times, but experts will tell you by and large, drugs are smuggled through official border crossings. You know, that may feel a little counterintuitive. Aaron, why is that? I posed that question to Tony Pion. He's the director of the Center for US and Mexico at the Baker Institute. He says Mexican drug cartels are run like a business. They're trying to find the cheapest and fastest way to smuggle drugs into the US. It's much faster and more convenient to do that at a border crossing. Law enforcement is there, but it's impossible to search every vehicle. Today, you have almost 300 million crossings a year. That means that the authorities at the border have to process almost a million depending on the day. Pion adds that cartels are constantly finding ways to hide drugs and cargo and semi-trucks and secret compartments or inside things like computers. So that answers where drugs are coming into the US, but who's bringing these drugs across the border? Again, cartel involvement largely ends on the Mexican side of the border. It's mostly US citizens bringing those drugs across. Experts like Pion point to arrest records as evidence of that. Cartels enlist Americans for this work. That's because they won't raise as much suspicion as say a Mexican national or someone with ties to a drug smuggling operation. It's not just big trucks hiding drugs either. Cartels entice young people or those struggling with addiction to smuggle drugs with the promise of easy money. So drugs mostly come across the border at legal points of entry and it's most often US citizens working for cartels that bring the drugs over. So what happens once the drugs make it into the US? How do they get to Montana? Keith Weiss is with the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. That's a partnership between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in Rocky Mountain States. He says the people trafficking drugs across the country do have ties with Mexican cartels. Doesn't necessarily mean that cartels are on the ground and conducting their operations like you see in Mexico, which can be pretty fierce. There's a lot of violence associated with them. Again, he says it's largely US citizens that buy shipments from cartels and traffic drugs in the US. They mostly use interstates to quickly move shipments across the country. Well, bottom line here is it sounds like it's a much more complicated picture than what politicians are painting right now. Do experts like Payan say this cat and mouse game of seizing drugs at the border or inside the US is actually working? They say it isn't. They will tell you traffickers will always change their tactics to keep moving drugs. Payan says politicians often talk about stopping drugs from coming into the US at the border, but he says there's no evidence, more money, border patrol or a wall will get that done. Yet that's where most federal funding goes. That's the main reason why we allocated to the supply side because if we go to the supply side, then who do we have on the other side of the supply point? The bad guy, the foreign, the border, the Mexican national. He says that foreign bad guy argument is easy for voters to latch on to. Payan isn't advocating for all law enforcement efforts to seize drugs to end, but he says a similar amount of funding needs to go into drug use prevention and treatment in order to reduce demand. This has me curious about the impact of drugs in Montana, Aaron. What can you tell us about 200 people died from drug overdoses in 2022, according to the federal centers for disease control and prevention. Those numbers have been steadily increasing and fentanyl has accounted for more of those deaths over time, but it's worth noting that these figures aren't perfect. The CDC relies on death certificates, which are filled out by local officials. Those records can be inconsistent. Do we know who's being impacted the most? Native Americans experience the highest overdose death rates in the US. In 2021, it was 30% higher compared to white people. The same is true in Montana. Indigenous Montanans death rate was twice as high as white people. Between 2009 and 2020, according to state data, that's despite making up only about 7% of the state population. That makes me wonder whether drug traffickers are targeting indigenous communities. Experts and tribal officials say they are. Blackfeet Nation tribal council member Lyle Rutherford says there is a smaller law enforcement presence in many of these communities, making it easier for traffickers to operate. Where's you look at some of the other tribes within the state of Montana based on their population and land base? You only have one or two officers, so. He says Blackfeet have an agreement with the federal government that allows the tribe to fund 22 officers, but they still have to patrol one and a half million acres. He'd like political candidates to talk about how they will provide more law enforcement resources and how they will support communities struggling with addiction. Well, it's a complicated issue, Aaron, but thank you for being here to break it all down for us. Yeah, no problem, Austin. This is MTPR.