Trump’s claims about drug smugglers absurd

President Donald Trump likes to claim there are f loods of illegal immigrants bringing large quantities of drugs across unfenced sections of our southern border. This claim defies common sense.

Imagine, for a few minutes, that you are the head of a drug cartel, whose job is to get 2,000 pounds of drugs from Mexico into the United States each day, and you have four options:

1. Load all the drugs onto a small plane destined for an unmarked landing strip in Arizona.

2. Load them into a speedboat that will deliver them to an isolated dock on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

3. Hide them in the false bottom of a truck that will cross the border into California.

4. Break the 2,000 pounds into packages of 50 pounds each and try to find 40 immigrants willing to take them on foot across an isolated, unfenced section of the border. Keep in mind that many of these immigrant/smugglers won’t be able to finish the trip. Some will be caught and may become a witness against the person who gave them the drugs. Still others may take off and try to sell the drugs on the street by themselves. Also, you will have to try to repeat the entire exercise tomorrow.

Other than President Trump, is there anyone foolish enough to select the fourth option?

Yes, we have a drug problem, but the drugs are not being brought here in large quantities by immigrants on foot. Instead of spending $5.7 billion on a fence to stop nonexistent drug smugglers, doesn’t it make much more sense to spend that money on technology to stop planes, boats and trucks that really are bringing drugs into our country?

James Flanigan Wynantskill