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Border Drug Busts Putting Strain On Texas County's Budget

Eric L. Olson

Eric Olson is quoted in this article on an increase on drug possession charges impacting Texas’ Hudspeth County’s budget.

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By The Numbers:

• Roughly 8 out of 10 people busted in the Border Patrol's Big Bend sector between 2005 and 2011 were Americans caught at a checkpoint.

• Eighty-eight percent of the seizures – mostly marijuana – at Sierra Blanca, the sector's largest station, were traffic stops for amounts below drug-trafficking thresholds.

• Three out of 4 people the U.S. Border Patrol catches with drugs nationwide are U.S. citizens.

• Less than 10 percent of drugs that are smuggled into the country are seized by U.S. law enforcement, according to an estimate by Eric Olson, associate director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

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About the Author

Eric L. Olson

Eric L. Olson

Global Fellow;
Director of Policy and Strategic Initiatives, Seattle International Foundation
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Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more