« Gwinnett "epicenter" of Atlanta drug activity »

An article in the USA Today about Mexican drug cartel activity in Atlanta, fingered Gwinnett County as "the 'epicenter' of the region's drug activity."  If you were not already convinced that our porous international borders was a legitimate problem, consider this:

An added attraction for the cartels, say Nahmias and Rodney Benson, the DEA's Atlanta chief, is the explosive growth of the Hispanic community.

Nahmias calls northeast suburban Gwinnett County, about 30 miles northeast of Atlanta, the "epicenter" of the region's drug activity.

Gwinnett's Hispanic population surged from 8,470 in 1990 to 64,137 in 2000, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Now, 17% of the county's 776,000 people are Hispanic.

"You see Mexican drug-trafficking operations deploying representatives to hide within these communities in plain sight," Benson says. "They were attempting to blend into the same communities as those who were hard-working, law-abiding people."

If there were not a significant number of illegals living in Gwinnett, perhaps our communities would not be so attractive to drug trafficers.  I would imagine that the skiddishness of illegals for law enforcement keeps many otherwise law-abiding residents from tipping off authorities about dealers.  (And, no, blanket amnesty is not the solution.  You don't cure the problem of legitimate crime by legalizing it.)  Since President Barack Obama's administration is unlikely to take any measures to seriously combat illegal immigration, we can only hope that Gwinnett's participation in the ICE 287(g) program will make our county less attractive to illegals and perhaps drug cartels.  If not, an environment infested with drug activity will only drive more law-abiding citizens out of Gwinnett, thus exacerbating the problem.