Fences in the sky

The Minutemen, a group of civilians who volunteer to patrol sections of the border between the US and Mexico and build fences to keep illegal immigrants out, claim that one of their aims is to reduce the amout of drugs smuggled into the US across the border. They state that their presence has slowed down drug smuggling "considerably".

Today's front page headline on cnn.com is Drug flights surge in Caribbean en route to U.S. The byline is from the Dominican Republic, and apparently the Rep Dom and Haiti are becoming a "drug smuggler's haven", with drug-stuffed airplanes departing in greater numbers over the last four years.

The last sentence in the article: "With the surge in drug flights, it's hard for the Dominican Republic to stop the drugs from getting in, and it's also hard to stop the drugs from getting out to the next stop in the drug pipeline -- Puerto Rico." Yeah, we all knew that, but seeing it trumpeted nationally like that is kind of, um, ouch.

The next frontier in border security: air patrols between the East Coast and the Caribbean.