For 'Zona, A Man Named Chapo Guzman Is Bad News...

By PAUL HARASIM
Special to The Tribune

PHOENIX - Lost in the debate over this state's new anti-immigrant law - the one that places the hot and bright klieg light of enforcement on Mexicans - is the mess that is this state's battle against the unbridled flow of drugs moving north from Mexico.

Now comes word that Arizona is considered "territory" of the Sinaloa Cartel, the cartel run by Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. According to the current issue of Proceso Magazine, a respected Mexican weekly, El Chapo lays claim to the American drug sieve without apology. "It's wide-open out there," one American federal agent is quoted as saying in the magazine article. "That is one reason why some people in Arizona are angry."

Indeed, Arizona is a desert. Rough, broken geography stretches along its southern border west of Tucson and Nogales. The photo accompanying this story is a reflection of the land that stretches toward Yuma and Southern California. According to the magazine, California's initiative in stopping drug-flow via Tijuana drove the cartels east, to Arizona, which at present battles the illicit trade a lot more than does neighboring New Mexico or Texas.

Drug enforcement officials bemoan the lay of the land, saying they cannot possibly patrol such an expanse of harsh desert; that, yes, the drug dealers look for holes in the enforcement umbrella, that they likely know the ways of the desert better than federal agents used to air-conditioned jeeps and offices....

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