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Sam Quinones

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The article, “Why Trump’s Wall Won’t Keep Out Heroin,” was featured in The New York Times, a center-left publication, on 2/16/17. The author of the article is Sam Quinones. Quinones is a freelance journalist who works for The New York Times, National Geographic, and the Pacific Standard Magazine. The accuracy of the many assertions in this article was difficult to verify because some assertions are generalizations, or information is not widely available. Sources were not provided. The author remains objective throughout the piece, although the author is clearly not in favor of a wall along the US-Mexico border. The solution presented is not to build the wall. Quinones does consider different opinions and the various pros and cons of each. …show more content…

Quinones states that “American demand for dope is greater than ever today. On our streets heroin from Mexico remains potent, prevalent and cheap – signs of how much is being trafficked, a lot of it, I suspect, through walled border zones.” (Quinones, 2017) Demand for heroin has been increasing in the United States for many years, and so has heroin-related deaths. According to the DEA, heroin-related deaths increased by 248% between 2010 and 2014. (Unprecedented: Heroin use & overdose deaths triple in US) The next assertion regarded Mexican heroin on the streets. In 2012, 45% of heroin seized by the DEA originated in Mexico. By 2014 that percentage rose to 79%. (Unprecedented: Heroin use & overdose deaths triple in US) The final claim was that much of the heroin is being smuggled through walled border zones. Currently there is only 700 miles of fencing between Mexico and the United States out of the nearly 2,000 miles of border we share. It was mentioned earlier that many people smuggle small amounts of heroin across the border but the large operations smuggle bigger amounts by truck. With that information, I find it unlikely that large amounts are traveling through walled border zones. There was not available information when looking for those statistics but tunnels are common between the two borders which would explain some of the drugs trafficked through walled border

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