blatchford, author of the black hand in immigration reporter, timothy pratt. it was held at the long museum in las vegas. this is about 90 minutes. >> it's great to have you. this is certainly to people you guys are lucky you get like 10 people. because the breath of the experience that my colleagues have done is just remarkable. between the two of them, sylvia has for this state, federal government, armed forces chris has worked in print and tv,

journalist and peer both of course our authors. soviet border security and cartel and chris has the black hand, all three of which will be available tonight as i understand it. and they live with these issues are playing out in southern california. between the two of them, we are really a privilege to be able to benefit from the breath of experience in the good work they have done and i look forward to hearing from done and we're going to talk amongst yourselves and at the end we would definitely welcome and appreciate your input and questions as well. first i think we'll hear from sylvia. >> thank you very much for coming tonight. i can't emphasize enough how

significant the current situation is in mexico and also along the border. this is kind of an unprecedented actuation as far as the way that the mexican drug her tells her operating south of the border, the measures they're taking to bring illegal drugs into the united states and also how it is impacting law enforcement, how it's impacting americans across the united states, how it's impacting national security and things occurring particularly here in the united dates are today's happening in our neighborhood. these are activities not just limited to california, arizona, new mexico. drug cartels or by 90% of the illegal drugs in demand in the united states. that means anywhere people are using drugs are demanding drugs will find some type of cartel presents. you're actually not going to see the tracks. the people caring through the

highways like atlanta, las vegas, detroit, chicago, phoenix, los angeles. all this is happening right under our noses, yet it affects the fabric of our communities and that is worth learning a little bit more about what is happening. now the big controversial issues immigration. immigration reform. and contributing editor for brave or texas. so we have been writing a lot about the surge in immigration happening in south texas. the families, women, children coming because of the horrible security and economic situation in central america. the cartels are taken that because the coyotes are charging a two come to the border. and refuge throughout the country. it's a topic worth coming

throughout the country and you are taking times to learn more about how these issues affect all of us. >> sylvia is not only prettier than i am, she is smarter than i am. so forgive me i'm going to work on some notes here for a little bit. i would like to start with an anecdote that starts to the point of why we are here talking about cartels and organized crime today. not that long ago i was standing in a small apartment in los angeles and a mexican woman in her late 30s and tv rodriquez lived tv rodriquez with bair withdrew my son. her husband had been killed a year earlier would've been caught in crossfire in los angeles. the family came to america six years earlier like so many other immigrants looking for a better way of life here. she worked all day and a clothing factory for minimum wage and still dreamed of a better life for her son rudy.

his eighth-grade teacher was also in the rooms there with me with his mom. she told me that rudy was a friendly, happy kid who always had a smile on his face. he loves sports and like so many other american kid from a dream someday he would be a baseball majorly pitcher. rudy's mother sat on the edge of her bed in the corner of the room while talking to the teacher. not because she didn't speak english, but because every time she started to speak thomas hobbes would come out of her throat. when i looked at her and saw those white red cheeks dripping with tears, and i also saw my own mother who lost a son at a younger age. i saw the faces of a trail of moms can a grieving mom said interview during the past three decades in the los angeles area. the faces those moms were black

and white and brown and asian. and i couldn't help to note that this years of her eyes throughout the the same color. so is pain in their heart. her son rudy westman again. no tattoos he was simply walking home from school one gang members jumped out of the car, chasing down an alley, shot him eight times and left him for dead. the neighbor came out and found him, his little body convulsing ministry. he died in the hospital about an hour later. just a nice kid in the wrong place, wrong time, caught up in some gang where he actually had nothing to do with it all. all of his hopes and all of his transit a kid died along with him. his mom for the rest of her life haunted by this senseless murder left alone with your daily tears and broken hopes of what could

have been issue a live with that for the rest of her life. what is even more heartbreaking is it. there are thousands of moms like the united states today. according to wikipedia, as many as 15,000, now that many people die each year from a certain disease, we would call it a national epidemic. from the year 2003 to 2012, about 5000 american soldiers were killed in the iraqi war. a few dozen people on our streets in america in gang related violence. los angeles area alone going back to the 198-7500 to when that contain related deaths every year. at least a third of them were just innocent people at the wrong place at the wrong time.

in 1991 there were an estimated 250 gang members in the united states. the fbi estimates there are about 1.4 members in the united states and as many as 33,000 different gangs. about 70,000 gang members live in los angeles. i've seen other estimates and i tend to believe those more in the gang capital of the united states. and those l.a. gangs have migrated across the country into mexico and central america. the mexican mafia was founded in 1957. it started as a prison gang in california and its influence has spread exponentially in the last 20 years. the godfather of the mexican

heroin kingpin in 1970s. the organization as a whole was not that organized back then as it is today. in the early 90s a new generation of mexican mafia member some refer to as the pepsi generation clearly expanded influence in california or 50,000 to 60,000 gang members in los angeles and the mafia is enacted a plan at that time to unite all the latino gang members under the mexican mafia umbrella. the plan was all the gangs would not only buy their drugs from the mexican mafia, but would also kick back part of the profits of all those drugs be sold in the street. it gave the mafia is virtual instant attorney of thousands of gangsters in california working for them doing hits, and

extorting part of their program. if a certain gang are certain gang members didn't go along with this program, he was put on a green light mist. and the southern california area. if they ran into a number in the list but to kill them. those street gang members through the western texas, arizona, new mexico, washington, oregon and colorado. most of the drugs they sell come from mexico. sylvia was saying this morning to estimate 90% of the drugs outcome in the united states through mexico. the gang structure in l.a. already set up in neighborhoods all over southern california became like a mc donald's franchise for the mexican cartels. in the early 90s the san diego gang member named david thoreau,

they called him pop by, developed a strong relationship with the tijuana mexican drug cartel and idea for ms. or you know felix brothers. top five based on his successes for the cartels running back and forth across the border from seeing diego into mexico. at 1992, he was a made member of the california mexican mafia under the tutelage of another mafioso named josé marquez, better known as bat or kaz. these guys shipped 10 intensive drugs across the border and they arrested trio of hotties behind. among those bodies, the 1993 assassination as a guadalajara airport in the 1997 ambush of the tijuana newspaper and jesus bunker nail us.

and the mexican assassin in the streets. federal wiretaps in 1994. recorded other mafia members in the los angeles area, bragging about his exploits. not in america, but across the border in america, safety and popeye the road, and these were the words he used, like james bond. that said they had connections in europe, colombia, japan, jamaica and italy and that he and popeye had influence with politicians, judges military officials in mind first when officers. remain weak as is the subject of the book you can buy in the hallway that i wrote. he's the mexican mafia known as boxer. he later assigned to me that god and popeye to the american base prison gang and took them out of the prison setting and gave them

international influence and that is where we are today. boxer also noted that the mexican mafia controlled by the presence in california and most of the prisons of our federal system across the united states announced the mexican druglords get locked up in those american prisons, the mexican mafia can have those cartel bosses either protected or killed. he gives the mexican mafia, are mexican mafia tremendous in fluent, or rome was killed in a shootout in tijuana and marquez is now doing life in prison in america. there is evidence a number of other heavyweights on this place and there is a symbiotic relationship between the mexican cartels that are mexican mafia. it's a continued to thrive today. all across the united states and one that is meant to in drugs

assumption and death. >> thank you. we have fortunately a video that we can see which is interesting because it makes the connection between the two subjects that sylvia and chris have just talked about. you consulted on this video, correct, with the "national geographic" drugs think in the series then this particular segment takes a look at precisely how these organizations then how the people working in an area around this country, the safer barrier city. the recognize the backdrop throughout the city i'm sure. >> it's the mexican kingpin's

making millions for the cartels, the police ultimately want to track down. ..

the main thing that we do, the biggest substance typically don't use cell phones or radios, we use radios. it's faster. the driver is the one with the most risk.

>> as the kingpin, he must be located under police radar. in the cartel is possible to move up the ladder the latter told me if ladder but openly if you are delivering the really big bucks. so much money at stake there are grim consequences for anyone who dares to cross rodriguez and his

cartel. >> we are going to talk among ourselves to put it that way, and i take advantage of the time that we have to sort of get a chance to dialogue. >> she didn't talk about $3 million or 10 million. the money is staggering and there is an anecdote that came out a gang member was built up because they couldn't move the cast fast enough they had an apartment and a million dollars worth of cash.

i would like to take up the images that you devote in the beginning of your talk and also use them to contextualize the whole part that immigration plays in all of this. i reported for nine years in las vegas on immigration and countless times i sat in households just like you and i'm sure your self with families that would play out the same basics area where either it is a single mother or both parents working one or two jobs in las vegas it's the service industry or the construction, and their absence from the household with

little supervision role models and as the gangs that you have mentioned come into the city over the last several decades proliferate them in their neighborhoods. and they offered initially a source of companionship and even some sort of affection almost that's missing in their household and after that of course there's there is money to be made as well. we had a history that was so recent and is so different compared to the two places that you live. i don't know if you would like to talk about 100 years of seeing the scenario play out in southern california and it is different in tucson but anyway, you see the drug trade maybe

doesn't have a lot of choices and that's -- you mentioned that the family structure and any gang member that you talked to on the street would tell you that they are the family. it's left behind and part of the tragedy is as nothing but a dysfunctional family even though it might give a kid whose parents are at work all day place to go it's not a good place to go. you're going to ask what the solution is and i don't always have that but it's a great american tragedy that we have thousands of kids the fbi says every community in the united states and in the population, 250,000 or more has a bad

problem and i don't think that existed ten, 20 to 30, 40 years ago and what is even worse is you see it on the college campuses, in the middle class communities middle-class communities and you even see it in the campus like ucla. you see them in upper-middle-class and that all comes from the prison environment but now it is a part of our culture so it is more in the next two days and in the days of alcatel and. >> i want to address the problem in mexico it stands for kids that neither work or study anywhere from ages nine to 17 or 18. the mexican government estimates there are maybe 300,000 or so in mexico where the ngos, nongovernmental organizations say as many as 7 million.

so as the preferred to a lot of these kids come from broken homes that are working three jobs to keep the family afloat and these kids are dropping out of school. either that or it's too hard to go to school. in the city of 2 million people is very spread out like la. sometimes it is a $3 million or pick up a kid from home to school because they live in an outlying part of the city and the way that the bus route and public transportation work it's like a hub and spoke so they go probably here to disintegrate the city and then go all the way over here just to go to a school so you have kids or eight, nine, 12-years-old on the street board of not doing a lot of anything. then you have a cartel member that comes up to them and says i'm going to give you a cell phone whenever you see an army patrol coming i want you to text me and in return for that you get to keep the cell phone.

you've got these kids and they are without essentially. as. so later on when the kid comes 12-years-old with a graduate to being a drug mule and even in the country between communities and maybe later across the board and when they graduate to the 13, 14, 15, they give him a $300, put a rifle in his hand and tell them to go into the restaurant and make sure he shoots the guy. he doesn't know who he is said he shoots everybody in the restaurant to make sure that he makes the extra $300 for accomplishing the jobs that you've got all these kids that look at these can obviously they will be making a lot of money to get involved in the cartel's. but it's hard to understand the best comparison i can give you is the glamour that occurs in mexico but these kids they look at these kingpins the same way our kids and teenagers look at

bookstores and athletes that actors etc.. they see the money and the close and the cars and the guns and they are glamorizing the songs that are all about them and in the soap opera that it clear i is the lifestyle. steve got this enormous recruitment pool into some of these kids are being involuntarily recruited into these gangs and threatened but a lot of them as spyware to death so moving on from that, news reports coming out some of you may have seen that there were cartel's recruiting teenagers in phoenix in southern arizona in the poorest areas of the border and trust me there are a lot of poor communities along the southwest border into these are kids who are u.s. citizens. they can come and go across the

border. a lot of them may not have have come in all records against the gate dropped out of school. they are all ready in the recruitment phase, they don't have many job opportunities because they don't have skills comes in here come these guys promising all this money and glamour but the bonus for these kids recruited in southern arizona and other is that they can come and go across the border because they are u.s. citizens. so it's not only happening there but then you've got this huge pool of potential recruits that are citizens living right here in the border communities. so whether they are joining the local gangs in la or houston or the cartel south of the border, it's a problem with poverty and lack of educational opportunities and it spans both countries. hispanic it's interesting with

so much in the situation on both sides of the border and it brings to mind the play that gets overlooked because there isn't time to go for the context and over the context and the details into the history eon is found in a in the news media and we were talking about this earlier the cultural context to develop a drug manufacturing or growling and then trafficking enterprise takes a lot of people and then the thing people here may overlook is the socioeconomic context in mexico or where i reported them in colombia is so distinct from here because you grow up in a society where we talk about the wealth gap in the u.s. but it's

so abysmal there is most of the wealth in these hands and then there's everybody else and there's not this idea anybody can succeed based on education and if you have connections were a certain family name. so that context it's a lot easier because it's all about the poll but in that context it's even easier. the whole enterprise that you need to manufacture or go they seem like there's much more opportunity. >> even an immigrant kid that comes here he still has more opportunity. if you are a tourist and you go to these villages and there are 7-year-old were 8-year-old kids running around with tattoos on their four head and bear arms

it's unbelievable what kind of a future as a kid does a kid like that have put the future he sees that he has as a drug dealer and he wants to be like the 22-year-old but what you're saying is right you have to to have empathy towards that but in the end these kingpins use these kids and nobody wins in the game. the ones at the top of the food chain in depth and dad were in prison the rest of their life. only a few of them make it through the day. even in a poor neighborhood in the united states or in one of the poorest countries in the world somehow we need to help them find a better way because it comes back to us. i spent a couple of weeks there in 2003 and the gangs are a

straight and they started in los angeles. we deported those from los angeles and i talked to the guy who was the head of 18th street in prison for murder at the time and he talked about how he brought it there and he sprinted over hundreds. >> it's interesting you bring that up because it is hard to go into the daily news reports that the daily news reports lately about the miners that we are seeing crossing the border i remember the first few weeks this has been reported and they talk about the more in-depth reporting and and so on but that's the way that you describe it and you've testified haven't

you into asylum cases and it is an unintended consequence of the policy. hispanic one of the things i started doing several years ago as a consultant and i do most frequently is work as an expert witness on mexican immigration cases and i have and i have other colleagues that worked for the cases that essentially ban immigration attorneys hired me to work on their cases because the client is either requesting asylum which is incredibly difficult to get for a mexican national or withholding their release from deportation because of the client gets deported back to mexico the cartels are basically going to kidnap them, talk to them etc. and it's a sad state of affairs in many cases sometimes they deal with snatches gave been working with the da for some time but they get deported back to mexico and

the cartel knows they were a snitch and that's going to happen to them. you are dealing with people that have obviously done bad things but the majority of my cases are people that have already been kidnapped and get what are called affirmative cases of police officers that are clean and some of them have been shot several times were kidnapped several times and they are fleeing the cartel and other cases families own land and they've attend by the cartels that want to grow marijuana on the land, business owners anywhere from a guy that owned a couple of pharmacies to somebody that owned that owned the talk of the top of the stand was being exported from the gang members who are cartels and if they cannot make their weekly quota they will get thrown into a car and watered down with hot sauce and carbonated water in their nose and electrocuted and

personal places. this goes on all the time. the kids are being threatened with recruitment by the cartels and this is something that has infused their daily lives of mexicans in places that never used to happen. this conversion from the traditional organized crime is keeping the violence among themselves staying away from families and kids and now they are targeting business owners and anybody that is perceived as having money. i just finished working on a case where an individual who's been to put was being departed and his family had been kicked out in mexico because they owned a decent amount of land and at the of the cartels are starting to target them and this was happening more broadly across mexico. the latest thing now is the

certain to certain cartels targeting illegal immigrants from central america and mexico moving to the border. because they have to pay the coyotes or the human smugglers 3,000 to $8,000 a pop they think if they were able to round up that much money to pay the smuggler, surely their family has more money if they are in the united states they probably are making some money they can send back to mexico and pay. sometimes they will stick them in a safe house and sometimes they will stash them in mexico and wait for the ransom to come and if it doesn't a lot of times they stash them in the united states. phoenix developed its own kidnapping home invasion task force because this was happening so much. it happens in texas and houston and south texas because of the surge of immigrants happening and now we are starting to see more and more of the safehouses they are keeping these immigrants and they will find a deepening the people if not

more. all they are in his underwear because there is no air conditioning. they are getting fed maybe some to tears or beans once a day, enough water to barely stay alive and in the 100 to 110 degrees was not enough to room to move 80 to 90 people all being held for money that's just the way things are going and they are afraid to call the police because they are afraid of being deported. a lot of these folks dealing with cartel violence in mexico they are just care if i'd bet it's a criminal problem and it doesn't meet the traditional requirements of being oppressed by the government of our immigration system stems from the cold war. it's a cold war way of thinking that hasn't been updated to deal with a new criminal threats but

i like to call the criminal insurgency that's happening and because in places like congress in el salvador and guatemala it may not be the government that is directly causing the violence but the fact that the government is looking in the other direction and is not able to protect its citizens you take a be taking the definition of refugee and refugee status and because in many parts of central america the government is completely incapable of protecting its citizens from these cartels and at the state and the municipal level the government is complicit so it's turned on its head the definition of what we view as government oppression who qualifies as refugees. some folks take advantage of the system and i certainly don't accept every case that comes in front of me because i see some folks that have been in the united states for ten years and

now they don't want to go home because they are getting deported. then my cousin got kidnapped five years ago and you can tell they just don't want to go. but in many cases these are people that are genuinely afraid hispanic i guess they are differentiated in mexico. it's a situation where the games that you gangs that you are describing that's what made me think of it, they were because of where you live and work mostly deported from la isn't that correct? >> if you are a decent person a part of you has empathy for this but on the other hand there are children that are being trained to be murderers and if you see some of the footage that comes out of central america and mexico they need our crop look

like leave it to beaver. there are heads chopped off rolling in the street, winds taken off. we really haven't seen that kind of violence that they do down there. talk about desensitizing. if you watch mexican television -- i know we try to be so antiseptic in america if you see a body in the street or on the news you will see a sheet over it. you watch the mexican news there's no sheet and there's heads thrown back and they throw them in the truck and it's really desensitizing and i think that speaks to the culture. even our government hates to say it but it's a narco trafficking government in mexico and honduras and el salvador. the cat out of the bag and i don't know how you put them in at this point. at some point you're going to ask what the solution is and i'm going to say she will answer that. [laughter]

>> i wonder what you think of the rule of jobs role of jobs and related domestic and foreign policies in the development of the mexican drug cartels in particular? i know it's a big topic. hispanic i mentioned this on the interview that he did we did maybe ten years ago i was in san diego talking with four to six agents that spend 25 years of their life chasing drug dealers across the border and i remember one thing that remembered something that came up in the conversation was they all said they hated whichever president coined the phrase war on drugs because it raised the anticipation and none of these agents believed that they would've would ever solve this problem or lock it all up but

they still believed in the job that they were doing but this whole suggestion was not adamant to them which was very eye-opening to me. lock them up and everything will be solved. these were smart college educated guys and they they had an honest view and i don't think that we will ever completely end it but i don't think you just don't do anything about it that you have to have a law enforcement. >> you have any thoughts about the development? >> i want to take a bit broader view. one thing people talk about legalization is a solution and there is a big controversy over that but one thing a lot of people don't understand when we talk about the drug war and why we continue to make the same policies for 40 or 50 years we've been doing this and

nothing has improved or changed. so a lot of countries in latin america have been challenging that mindset and so we are tired of the current policies. they basically said we are legalizing everything. it's really kind of an experiment. but they are not really the first country to do it or think about a quarter mile at talking about it. guatemala is done and mexico is bad. they are zero conference and the cartels are all over guatemala. it is bad. so the problem is there is something called the united nations convention against narcotics and that's back from 1961 and i think there is 189 out of all of the countries that are signatories to this convention and it basically says you will have walls that make it illegal to use or sell drugs

etc., etc.. so, any country that goes against this international convention, that is what really big deal. and bolivia went against, they withdrew from the convention because coca is a big part of the indigenous culture but now bolivia has a huge cocaine problem even though the campaign set zero to cocaine which worked out well for them but they wanted that game. they just wanted that kind of exception for the cultural issue and even bolivia recognized as being out of the convention that is a kind of international -- that is something to be looked down upon. so being a very kind of insignificant country relatively speaking in the grand scheme of things they said somebody has to do something different. i don't know that there will be a chain reaction that it's drawn a lot of attention and now that we have this movement as far as medicinal marijuana and now colorado and washington and the

public opinion is moving a little bit i don't think that we are anywhere near pulling out of the convention because obviously fully legalizing it here way that it was in the uruguay is a big step in the controversial. the company is looking at this at the national level thinks crew the un this isn't working for us. we need to do something different for our citizens. >> the top prosecutor and the whole area when they were dealing with this issue also came to be in favor of legalization. hispanic i have a question for you. after spending those years in colombia today colombia today at a joint problem in terms of addiction and things that we have here? >> it's not the same, no. i don't think any country has the same statistics. >> isn't it 80% of the drug's? >> i think it is ireland that consumes the most cocaine.

>> of the producing countries see the drug use increase but the u.s. command that is the is a whole other topic of course, the culture and society on the so many levels we have a discretionary income to buy the drugs. hispanic there's something about the there is something about the culture and society that create the demand for it which by the way brings up the issue of treatment that neither one of you mentioned that there was a certain point in the development of the war on drugs where there were more resources financially

and otherwise into the introduction into stopping the trafficking and less resources to treatment. i don't know what you think about that. >> if anybody ever had a drug addict in the family or a friend, sure you have to have the treatment but they always propose it as we have a bunch of treatment centers the problem is going to go away. we did a story in the la in the late '80s in one of these treatment centers and found out 95% of the people leave in three days. you can't make a person give up drugs. it isn't as easy as opening treatment centers and i think that is the fallacy of the argument that the treatment centers are going to end it because most of the jug addicts

love drugs. the whole day is spent. even if you are a rock and roll star you have to find a connection and your whole day is wasted. >> one thing i have consulted for a couple of episodes of drugs incorporated into the channel and i can't recommend the show enough if you really want to see what drug use and trying to type that is all about. i was in law enforcement eight and a half years. i'm not pro- legalization of everything. and you watch the show and the mothers who could be taken away. she and her husband live in a tent and he robs homes and she

prostitutes herself because they are meth addicts. i am on and you see pregnant women hitting the pipe and i'm like what level of desperation of mental illness of just poverty in sheer desperation to you have to be to lose your kids and be okay with that because the drugs are more important than your own children. do you think the people care that it's illegal? i'm not saying to legalize it all i'm saying is that the current environment there is nothing that will get them to stop and when you talk about treatment you have folks that

are in a situation that drugs are what they turn to. we are treating the drug issue through interdiction right now because i don't know that we are capable of whether it's rehab or social security i don't know if we have the ability to deal with issues that lead people to demand drugs and get addicted to that level so it is complex. >> you don't stop cops from arresting bad guys and it's just you can't -- you have to do it on all fronts and i don't think

there is a perfect solution. there is no upside if you had a jug addicts in the family there is no upside to getting involved in drugs even alcohol in this country is just decimates families but people will defend it until the day that you die. hard-core drinkers cause a lot of problems. >> you asked me about columbia but do you think about the connection between the colombian drug cartels and what happened in colombia with the relationship between the u.s. and colombia and .5 billion what

is happening in terms of mexico into the plan is that billion? >> even the drugs themselves into the development of the cartels, what are the similarities and differences? >> for those of you that are not familiar the revolutionary of the terrorist group in colombia and also you have the national liberation army and the military is very heavily involved in the drug trafficking but then you also have the cartels that are no longer functioning and now you have a lot of cocaine production end the violence associated stemmed from a civil war it would've people were uprooted and displaced from their homes in the diet over the

40 or 50 years of the civil war but over the last decade maybe things have gotten a little bit better. cocaine production has not slowed down but the level of violence has improved and that's largely due in part to plan colombia. its 4.5 billion if i remember correctly and at one point: via was the second highest recipient behind israel. a colombia of out of the troops to go in and do counter drug missions whether it was over the flight radar installations etc. and we still have people that are there an ounce of a lot of people said this works in this country to help reduce the violence associated with the terrorists. why can't we have a plan in mexico to do the same thing whether it is sending a small

contingent of troops and objecting more money into court and some folks say that easy. you have a drug problem in both would suggest both let's just do the same thing but there are dramatic differences between the two. you have cartels with different personalities and ways of operating but also different governments. there is corruption in colombia just like all of latin america that goes back hundreds of years but the main difference that has been successful in colombia is the upper classes stayed in colombia and they've invested in their country and worked very hard to take ownership of their country and mexico the upper classes are leaving. the middle class when they can are leaving because you can buy a visa for half a million dollars if you invest in certain industries. a million dollars a half a

million depending what industry and you can basically buys a visa to come here a lot of folks just say we are done with this violence. we are going and you didn't see that level of departure. you are seeing the way the civil society is reacting to the violence. the way that the cartels are interacting with each other is different how they are splintering that are not working like the traditional cartel. the situation on the ground is different so i don't think that you compare the two >> if that's going to solve the organized crime problem they are

going to find something else then what do we do, legalize human trafficking? where do you draw the line? i think that we have to address these all and be realistic in the conversation about it. some of this stuff is a tough fix but again you have to do something on all fronts. life is not perfect and there are no -- we were talking this morning after being news reporters for three or four decades and a lot of them are more liberal i think that things are not always black and white. it's mostly in that gray area there are no concrete solutions and when you think you find one, then something else pops up over

here. i will tell you one thing that we do have in the country that none of them are talking about is that we are able to sit here and talk about this. you can't have this kind of discussion and mexico. >> it is an interesting point also. i was asking about the differences between the situation in colombia and another interesting thing to note is the difference between a mob in the 30s and the more recent phenomena because i don't think it was as interested, they didn't have as much directed at the civil society like the

journalists and politicians as much as you see a. >> there is a guy in chicago studying which i think was from 1929 to 1936 and he told me this was back in the 80s he said that during that period is seen as a deep cover and there was something i've got the figures there were something like 200 kids in that time and all the people that died even if there was a hit and a restaurant the story goes it was a woman that was cut by the blast.

but i think today you talk to the old-school gangsters for 40 and above and they are complaining about the same thing in mexico these young gangsters today and who took 18th straight he said what i'm worried about is the kids today. he said i'm trying to teach them the old-school but there is even a difference in those generations those in the mexican mafia are worried about the group that are killing indiscriminately. you see john dies in la where people are killed all the time and i had read a lot about it over the years and it doesn't

seem like they had these indiscriminate killings. >> or the violin to suicide especially in mexico and colombia whether it be journalists or politicians so that is a big difference. do you think that a -- do you think the scene in the mexican situation as an attempt to enter politics and so on and control politics as it happened in colombia? spinnaker they control the politics to an extent. i remember when it formed in 1984, 86 when they briefly entered politics and that didn't really work out so they got out of that. i think that we see the largest level of influence where you

have people being threat and that the polls and you have mayors of being coerced and i think 36 mayors is more that have been killed in the last several years so the cartels do it and are the ones that point the police chief said so at that level they have a considerable amount of control over politics but they are not interested in running the country and one thing i do want to address as a bit of a segway i didn't know there was one report written by a military outfit and other news reports say that that it's a failed state or it is a failing state. we talked about it earlier about this. the good news is mexico isn't a failing state and it's easy to look at the violence and to say it's on its way down.

a failed state is somalia, pakistan. it's a disaster. there's there is very little government control if any. you've got these warlords, it's so poor. it's a complete disaster and then how many millions or hundreds of thousands of people were killed and displaced. mexico has has the world's second-largest economy of the rising tourism industry and the functioning military and the judicial system is extremely screwed up but it's a functioning judicial system and police. you have many places in mexico where blood isn't running in the street that's not to say there isn't a presence. there is a presence in almost every part of mexico but there are a lot of peaceful places you don't have cartels that are fighting with each other so the

country is running and it's the third-largest trading partner. you have a billion dollars in trade going across the border back and forth every single day. that is not in my opinion a failing statement. so mexico is relatively speaking and doing okay but you have parts of mexico where the government has little control over how the cartels are operating. so you cannot say that it's a general overall problem or at the national level but you do have those that know how to manipulate the government and government officials at the level and that is still concerning. >> that we are seeing in the los angeles area that corruption is already happening to a degree. there was a council southwest of los angeles where they arrested this guy and a couple of he and a couple of years ago he was involved in the cartel money with a couple of city councilmen and in the last 20 years we get

money from the mexican mafia as they came up they said it's there, why wouldn't it be? why wouldn't they be here they have plenty of money. i was talking to a guy that was involved in the massacre when the people were killed in early 2000 and he was involved in the number one wanted a guy. he said you can see him all can't see him all the time in the clubs in los angeles. he wouldn't recognize then he said that they are there. i get calls from people periodically saying i saw one of the brothers in this open colombia. i don't doubt that they were there. they've got all this money to

spend, where else to spend it and live freely by the united states of america. >> we are a good point. >> if anybody is on the end of their seat waiting for the capone figure from 1944 to 91, that is what we get in a year in los angeles. >> or mexico compared to 70,000. that is a good figure. i don't know, do we have the microphone over here or the center and should we bring up the house lights and do you want me to call on people and then have them come up here?

>> thanks. my name is carl and i live in nevada. i spent over three years of my life in mexico. if it was down there i would probably be the first one up here but it's all our faults with fault with our laws that we allow this, we allow people to come up, bring their drugs etc.. i've had two people in my family that have died from drug overdose and it's a horrible death. the mexican people are great people. but still at the same time we don't have the resources to take care of the world. we need to buckle down and do

whatever it takes to start sending system of these people go back to their own home cities mexico is basically the richest country in the world of copper and gold but yet we take the pressure off because the good ones come up here and try to work instead of taking care of mexico. >> was very question there a question that you wanted to ask? >> i want to know why the government doesn't do more to protect our citizens in the united states from people like the drug quartiles. my house has been involved twice, my car's been stolen.

nothing was basically done. >> your question is? >> how can we make the government take care of the people that are already here? to >> i hear his pain. you've had drugs in your family, your not alone. you start talking to anybody, they have an uncle or son or something. it's a terrible problem. i have a lot of friends that are cops and they had a terrible job and i think that most of them do a damn good job. there are crooked cops like anything else. we've thrown a lot of money at this and as i said earlier there is so much gray area.

if you were president tomorrow, you can shoot everybody. it's not as easy as it sounds. already hear your frustration and i always hate that question at the end, what's the solution, because i really don't know. a part of it is your anger. we should all be talking about this and plays a role in this. we are the abusers, the drug users, we tolerate it and that's where it begins. if we would educate ourselves about the evils of drugs and stop kidding ourselves about how you can double with a little, there are not many that get away with that. we have to have an honest and an ongoing discussion about this and i just don't think we can kill our way out of it or spend our way out of it. >> if you don't mind if we can open up -- >> without the money?

mexico mentioned they are no longer going to were no longer going to keep them money-laundering requirements for stores or banks at a certain level so talk to me about the money. >> i have an entire chapter in my book on money laundering that you can buy by = it for you. [laughter] money laundering i think is the -- not the worst kept secret but the best-kept secret about the truck were problem because it's not sexy. you don't see the blood or the violins and it doesn't make for an exciting story. the cartels are bringing anywhere from eight to $39 billion in drug money every year. that is a big ballpark figure that we can estimate and a lot of that money has to be laundered. people say that we are catching maybe 10% of the drugs crossing across the border and we are catching me maybe only 1% of the

money that is being laundered. it's going through bank of america, wachovia bank and in south texas hundreds of thousands of dollars are being laundered through south texas every year. at the local the local government has a reputation for being corrupt because if all of a sudden you cut that flow of money that's going through real estate and companies and restaurants with the local economy is going to see some of the hardest times that they've ever seen. but the way that they are laundering money where you have people working for the cartels they order fabrics and china come and put them through los angeles and then this is with u.s. dollars they bring them down across the border and so then for five or seven times what they are worth in pesos so not only for only do only for the long delay for laundering the money but also the currency and this is really hard to detect when you have immigration

and customs enforcement and investigations trying to develop the new outfits to counter that and you've got the irs and the financial crimes enforcement network and the department of justice that going after the banks we have never leveled criminal charges against any bank employees we are just slapping them with fines. >> of the the most effective place to go to stop this is take the money. we haven't spent enough money going after the money congress confiscated a million dollars, $10 million bet at the bank level going after morgan chase -- where do you think most of that money is coming in. >> department of justice has been quoted as saying they are afraid of delivering criminal charges because it will partially collapsed the financial system.

>> i would like to thank all of you for a wonderful program. i am joint learning things especially from people that are historical and quite right. first thing the mobsters at the library had a talk and i asked them what the solution was and they told me it was legalization and i thought what an asinine answer that was. it can't be any worse than it was now and it made some sense and it made sense as long as there are consumers there will always be a product in the cartels as the united states consumer and that must be the only thing we can control. >> that's what we were talking about earlier. the reason it's expensive is that it is illegal.

and that makes it expensive. >> of course it might be more expensive than ever. yes there is that if we were what we were thinking the treatment and prevention aspect. >> i have a couple of comments and maybe you got my comment. i'm a retired counselor at victorville and a 15 year military man. >> thank you for the service. >> i think probably -- i'm not big on the immigration issue were things that we need to change our focus. we have come as you know not just thousands, not two or 3,000 at 40 or 50,000 illegals coming across the board or that are that are arrested and go to federal prison. a lot of people don't know they go to federal prison.

private prisons operated in all these different places and they stay in federal prison if they been coming across the border six or seven times. >> are you talking above to be detained until their hearings? know, they've come back several times and have minor crimes and they are basically mexican nationalists that have come across the border and hard-working and all that good stuff but they come into the federal prisons and private facilities six months, two years. they go to court and all this stuff and all this money goes into this and transporting them from six months to the personal throughout the country and then they are deported back. i wonder how much money we are spending on that. how much of the money we could use to help the mexican army to pay the mexican police or give it to the mexican country, the

country of mexico. whatever it took, let's go in there and let's see if we can't put a little damper into the mexican cartels that way. one more thing and then i will go sit down keep. i had one guy you probably know he used to inject heroine into a cyst in his leg. crazy, just a stone called the co- called member who was the subject. he is in protective custody now but there were some bad people and you wouldn't believe how much control -- this is what i can't understand either how much control the mexican mafia has on the southside is south side is in prison but what's funny when you help me out here in prison when members count you know who

runs the arts nobody messes with art nobody messes with is the basis, the mexican nationals because state penitentiary areas 15 inmates, there will be 700 of them that will be pisces, maybe 100 south siders, la gang members. i don't see why they are not winning down in mexico. thank you. >> to address what you were talking about earlier, not to go back to the book of the domain. but the main. i presented the border security, immigration and immigration reform are obviously very controversial. i do not offer my own opinions on what i think the answer is. ..

you take a look -- again, immigration reform i don't believe in amnesty but i don't believe in deporting everybody.ç i think there's a middle ground. if you start treating the immigration problem as a legislative and policy issue -- i don't know what the answer is but you make it a civil legislative and policy solution, and not a law enforcement solution, then all of a sudden that frees up so many billions of dollars and so many thousands of border patrol agents to go after the bad people that are actually coming here to hurt us, that are coming here to bring drugs illegally into the country. so, as you were saying, dealing with the detention centers, the jails, in south texas, again, we have been covering this so heavily, and you have the vast majority of border patrol agents

in south texas dedicating their time to processing these kids and their families, administrative work. who do you think is out there -- don't you think the drug cartels are taking advantage of that and saying, now is the time to go? so they're sending the tonnage of dope through south texas because nobody is there to stop them because they're in the detention centers processing the folks, changing diapers, making lunks and sandwiches for these folks. that's the theory i put out there as far as dealing with it from the law enforcement -- >> it is frustrated. he was saying why don't we go down in mexico and arrest these guys. really, in the last 20 years, law enforcement has done a pretty great job in mexico. felix cartel, which for, what-maybe 20 years -- >> they were bad. >> they took over most of mexico at one point. they pretty much wiped out that organization to the point where we are today, is there's now

just a bunch of little fractured cartels, all over the place, rather than this big general motors cartel. but to the point that -- it's like that whack-a-mole game. not going down and one pops up over here. >> thank you for this presentation. i'm an american citizen, i'm cecelia hayes. from georgia. former u.s. special forces commander spouse. so, being a lot -- the operations within south america, living in panama for many years. there is one thing i'd like to contribute, because i think you haven't seen the big picture of it. it is why -- the difference between the colombian mafia and

the mexican mava. the colombian mafia is to thisrñ level. and the rest of south america is at this level. the u.s. government donates what you see like help, right? donates to the third world cub countries with drug problems. just to make a number, $100 million, because they're going to get paid back with theú guns, ammunition, the person, and everybody who send to those countries. so i'm sending you that but you're going to allow us to do all these, and there's a cycle, economic cycle, needed there. that's one. that's why so much money goes there now, colombia is like the war. the united states needs a war all the time. at least one, if it's not three, so we can keep the operation of the economic process because the machinery is there, have to build guns, have to produce airplanes, have to produce everything for war. the same thing with the drugs.

why is colombian -- the dea get the call when another country or -- let's say specifically, anybody in bolivia, peru, can grow cocaine. ill lee but they grow it. option. you grow that or you die. that it. no roads, no schools, you basically -- the government doesn't remember you, you're in the middle of nowhere, and your kids are starving. so they come and say, okay, growing coca leaves. they're a weed. you have to cut at the other plants. so what they do is bolivia and peru are allowed to grow crops of coca leaves, you might know that because of colombia. they're allowed to make deep

holes in the ground, and marinate them with -- very toxic and they cannot process it to make it cocaine. if they attempt to process the the whole separation. you decent see the airplanes or can't hear you talking. there'ôyñ no road, nothing. so you have people who have not an option, and the question is, how do we stop this? only stop is the consumption. so you have colombia, it's allowed to process it, grow it, process it, and commercialize it. the other countries don't. if you do, that you're shut down, and they use a shutdown forces as dea.

that's how it works and that's a community collaboration. that part you have not even touched yet. >> i think that that's a prevailing attitude in mexico as well. when i was in mick mitch would can, the government official i was with, his attitude toward the united states, it's your problem,or the ones buying all the drug. we're just selling it to you. >> correct. >> it's not our problem. >> run back to the beginning of -- uruguay is wonderful. it's like heaven. switzerland -- of course uruguay is going to legalize everything. they're friendly. it's a tiny little country. they want money and it's clean. friendly people, great environment, great food. bring the money. now we care uruguay with colombia again. your approach about what happened with the money in

colombia. the money, the big cartel money, they keep -- they're in panama. in the last 15 years, all migrate to pan newscast. in 2000 -- to panama. in 2000, when american returning to bases and closing down in panama, most of the chinese money, mafia money, coming in, but at the same time we had already two years of colombia -- no wonder you go to panama, all the banks of the worldcv ine real colombian money is. i want to just contribute this. >> thank you. >> and about the migration, i don't understand -- >> i think you should be sitting on the panel. >> yes. >> i want want to make sure -- we have other people trying to get their questions in. >> a collaboration you have a very narrow-minded way of seeing

the problem and there's certain things like immigration, with children, right? it is de-diculous for the rest of the world to every single country around, when you see america and say, poor children think want a better life. they want to go to school, want to go to college. every child in the world wants that. are we going to, with our tax money, support all those families? are we a single mom who pay taxes and raise theé÷÷ children? is it going to pay taxes to have somebody who is sitting, $72,000 a year to raise children that came -- paid by coyote, are responsible parents? that's not the way to solve problems. you're making a bigger problem. you're creating a higher rate for those coat tees to bring the children here now -- >> excuse me. with i'm trying to make sure we distinguish between statements and questions because -- >> my question -- >> i don't want people behind you -- >> i understand --

>> i'm not sure you. >> i'm sorry. you're the moderator and you haven't really -- >> you haven't let me finish. >> the question for me is, you should read a little bit more, open your mind a little bit more to really bring to the americans -- what you're saying you have a lot of very good facts, but your vision of the whole problem has to be wider to understand what will stop it and what the social cost of it. okay? because this is a very -- percent of -- make a cake i and now only see the filling of the top,ñz4hk like cover. >> appreciate it. >> very positive. >> thank you. >> it's very -- overseas person, very sad. >> thank you. >> hi, i'm sharey, a retired new york police officer, and i just

would like to get off the topic of drugged ! 3 ask the panel what they feel about terrorism? i have actually heard and been someone schooled in the[x)up should be more aware of terrorism from mexico thanx?sdzm overseas, and just question the panel. >> good question for you. >> i have an entire chapter on that. >> thank you, thank you. it's a simple question. i'm not sure. i go to mexico -- >> sure. it is more -- it's an issue that is very -- shaped very much by the media, and unfortunately there's not a lot of context, not a lot of hoyt, and, and -- f history, something that is hard to explain in 800 words. >> can i sit down? >> oh, please, go sit down. we have had media reports coming out, my god, isis is probably already here and they're coming across the border and blah, blah, blah.

since 1993, out of the 36 operational terrorists that have been apprehended in the united states, not only has not a single one of them come -- not a single one has come from mexico. every single one has come here fromv13k canada or overseas inte airports withn1cñ i.d.s and legitimate travel documents. you have to understand how terrorist groups train and invest in their operatives coming here to blow stuff up. it is -- they put a lot of time and effort into training and funding these operatives that come here. so they're recruiting people who have -- who will pass the background check, who will go through customs and who have legitimate -- if they're fraudulent but i.d.s that will good through customs and they'll pass through, and they'll come here on a plane because, guess what, it is the easiest way to come here. yes, we have a lot of people that come across the border that

are undetected but it is a hard and deadly journey, tmñ spend years and millions of dollars to put a terrorist operation together, and send your operatives with a coyote who could kill them, leave them behind, when these guys could twist an ankle in the desert and die, get kidnapped and held hostage and then possibly get caught by border patrol? why do that? send them either through canada or give them legitimate documents documents and send them on a plane. that that's how they get here. that's from the terrorist perspective. from the cartel perspectivetive, the terrorists can't afford them. there was a story about iran that wanted to hire a maxan to assassinate the saudi ambassador in washington, dc at a restaurant. it was never a member of -- it was actually a dea confidential

informant working for them. they wanted to pay him $1.5 million. if i were a cartel and wanted to pay me a million and a half dollars i would laugh in your face. that is one lost drug load. that's it. the cartels want nothing to do with international terrorism, let alone an assassination in d.c. because that brings attention. the mexican government may have their problems, may have the corruption or issues with their police. the last thing that mexican crossing the boredder into the u.s. to blow stuff up. there's no way to shut down the border but the closest you'll ever get to shutting down the billion dollars crossing the border in both directions every day is to have a terrorist attack originate from mexico, coming into the united states, and the cartels, the fastest way to get american boots on the ground that no mexican citizen wants is to have that happen. the quickest way to shut down a cartel operation, those eight to

$39 billion coming into cartel pockets, is to have them associated with some kind of operational cartel action. gub makes no sense from a business perspective, for the cartels and makes no sense from an operational and logistical perspective on the terrorist side. they take the path of least resistance and that is not from mexico into the united states. so take that for what it's worth. >> thank you. i don't know if there's any other questions that people haven't had an opportunity to ask. if not -- [applause] >> thank you, thank you, so much for coming out. tkd5mñ

>> next, naomi kline argues that climate change will never be addressed properly until the u.s. gets rid of the free market capitalist system which she says created and continues to drive the problem today. after her ranks on the book, ms. kline discusses the issue with a panel of environmental and labor activists. bro duesed by bill mcgiven. [applause] >> well, thank you much. this is really important and interesting night, and so good to have clay get us going in the right spirit. really not just for tonight but for this