Correa-Cabrera: Our drugs policy has failed and our immigration and asylum systems are broken

MCALLEN, Texas – Dr. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Ph.D., still calls the Rio Grande Valley home, even though she is now a professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

The renowned scholar taught for many years at UT-Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville. She came back to the region recently for two speeches. One was titled “Beyond Boundaries: A Dialogue on U.S.-Mexico Border Security.” The other was titled, “Frontera: The Rio Grande Valley Advantage.” Both were held at South Texas College’s Pecan Campus in McAllen.

In her remarks, Correa-Cabrera said the United States’ policies on illegal drug consumption, immigration, and asylum had all failed. 

“More drugs are consumed in the United States than ever in the history of this country. Billions of dollars have been spent in drug prevention, in the administration and in collaboration with countries of the Americas. And we’re not solving this problem,” Correa-Cabrera said.

“The same way with immigration policies. Operation Hold The Line, all the money that has been spent on enforcement on both sides and militarization of both sides of the border, spending on more on boots on the ground. And the reality is that we are still seeing that the immigration system is broken, the asylum system is broken.”

Correa-Cabrera said these issues are not being addressed in the appropriate way. 

“Everything is being focused on the border, when really the problems and the root causes are not on the border. They can be solved in the places where this problem originated, such as addiction or drug consumption,” Correa-Cabrera said.

“Why do we have to focus on the border to solve a problem that originated in different cities of the United States. In a society that cannot offer the promised dream… the American Dream is not anymore for a number of people. What is driving the drug epidemic in United States are not the cartels. Therefore this proposal of declaring a war on Mexican cartels is completely out of place.”

The first of Correa-Cabrera’s presentations at STC came the day before the U.S. presidential election. The second came on Election Day morning, before the results were known. Correa-Cabrera acknowledged that the election would have far reaching implications.

“We’re going to see a major change in terms of discourse if one candidate wins and some type of continuity if the other candidate wins. We know what we’re talking about,” Correa-Cabrera said.

Correa-Cabrera noted that some Republican leaders have proposeddirect action by the US military on Mexican soil in order to thwart the Mexican cartels. “This will have a very important effect on US-Mexico relations,” she said.

Correa-Cabrera currently lives in Mexico. “I’m doing research on human smuggling and criminal networks,” she explained. “It’s really worrisome what I am observing in terms of the criminal dynamics.”

The author and researcher did have good things to say about the Borderlands.

“The Borderlands, it’s kind of a third country. It’s not just like a division between two countries or a place that where two cultures meet and get together. A good friend of mine, who was a border guard… he talks about a third country. A third country where we speak a different language. Sometimes we speak Spanglish. There are two cultures in one. It’s a unique region.”

Editor’s Note: Here is an audio recording of the first of Correa-Cabrera’s presentations at STC. It was titled: “Beyond Boundaries: A Dialogue on U.S.-Mexico Border Security.”

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