Week 4 Responses

Good Evening Class,

This week we learned about smuggling and organized crime. According to uslegal.com, smuggling is the "illegal transport of good, especially across borderlines. Smuggling is engaged to avoid taxation or to obtain goods which are prohibited in a certain region. Items that are often involved in smuggling include alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, arms, and even immigrants." To answer the question of what is smuggled and why it is smuggled, it's important to know how smuggling works. Smuggling is a simple relationship of supply and demand. In regards to America, drugs, weapons, and even humans are commonly smuggled. This is due to the high demand for these things. 

Smugglers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and other people who use smuggled items benefit from smuggling. The country, economy, and citizens are all harmed by smuggling. For example, smuggled goods cause manufactures to lose business which causes local, state, and federal governments to lose tax revenues. Smuggled goods harm citizens by introducing non-approved pharmaceuticals and drugs to the economy. This can lead to serious medical consequences that can result in death. 

Illegal migration and terrorism are two other land and maritime border violations that threaten the facilitation of legitimate trade. Criminal organizations continue to grow in power and resources. It's even possible that terrorist groups could be using the same criminal middlemen to assist them in the movement of funds, goods, and people as transnational organized crime (TOC) groups are using. Transnational crime is the globalization of organized crime. As transnational crime organizations gain success and profit from illicit networks, these organizations expand their financial power and foothold in society. Executive orders were signed by the previous president to promote border security. As a nation, it's important to be vigilant and stay two steps ahead of any acts of violence to combat transnational organized crime.

Sources 

Andreas, P. (2009).  Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide, 2nd ed.  Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Gallagher, A. T. (2015). Exploitation in migration: Unacceptable but inevitable. Journal of International Affairs, 68(2), 55-XIV.

 

Mamazizi, S., & Rostami, Y. (2016). On the examination of reasons why border dwellers tend to goods smuggling and its impacts on the non-accomplishment of economic development. World Scientific News, 52, 93-105.105.

 

Mullins, S., & Wither, J. K. (2016). Terrorism and organized crime 1. Connections: The Quarterly Journal, 15 (3), 65-82.

 

Novakoff, R. (2015). Transnational organized crime: An insidious threat to U.S. national security interests.Prism : A Journal of the Center for Complex Operations, 5 (4), 134-149.

 

President Trump’s Executive Order. (2017). Presidential executive order on enforcing federal law with respect to transnational criminal organizations and preventing international trafficking.

 

Roberts, B., Hanson, G., Cornwell, D., & Borger, S. (2010). An analysis of migrant smuggling costs along the southwest border. Office of Immigration Statistics, Department of Homeland Security, Tech. Rep.

 

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2016). Transnational organized crime: The globalized illegal economy.

 

U.S. Code (ND) 18 U.S. Code § 545 - Smuggling goods into the United States. Retrieved from <https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/545