Border county commissioner: Ranchers are scared to report drug trafficking crimes

1. Edwards explained that the folks in Washington live near counties that are completely protected and have robust resources to deal with internal crime, yet his county is left in the lurch dealing with “sophisticated cartels” coming over an international border.
2. Given that there is no permanent federal, state, or county law enforcement presence to protect them, Edwards told me his ranchers are too scared to share their stories with the media.
3. What about fencing? As I reported in my last article on Hidalgo County, Edwards warned that the fencing is so poor that the cartels even drive vehicles over the wired fencing and place ramps over the Normandy barriers.
4. Last week, El Paso Sector Border Patrol Agent Fidel Baca told Fox News that the large groups of migrants are not showing up specifically in this remote location “by coincidence.” It’s the criminal organizations taking advantage of the remoteness of the area to do their work.
5. As I’ve reported before, Hidalgo County has just four sheriff’s deputies for a county of several thousand square miles, with no law enforcement presence in the border ranch areas south of Highway 9.
6. Hidalgo County alone has been forced to absorb roughly half of the more than 60 groups of 100-300 migrants at a time being smuggled through by the cartels since last October.
7. David Whipple, the head of the seven-man EMS team in Lordsburg, the Hidalgo County seat, confirmed to me last week that the migrants are usually transferred to El Paso after about three days.
8. Tisha Green, who is the county manager appointed by Edwards and his two colleagues on the county commission, told me the ranchers have witnessed a disturbing change in the migrants’ attitudes, which is further concerning the ranchers.
9. The media and politicians living in their gated communities could never relate to what Edwards deals with as a county official at our frontier, because to them, an emergency is if they only get three bars of signal on their phones one day.
10. “One of my primary responsibilities is to try to see that the residents of my county can enjoy a solid quality life and they don’t have to live in fear for their lives,” said Edwards.
11. In a wide-ranging conversation with Joel Edwards, one of the county commissioners in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, he expressed deep concern for his constituents in this hard-hit county.

https://www.conservativereview.com/news/border-county-commissioner-ranchers-scared-report-drug-trafficking-crimes/