WATCH: Mexican TV Crew Catches Two Drug Smugglers Scaling Arizona Border Fence

Just in case you missed it, we have a massive drug smuggling problem in this country. The biggest contributor: the porous Mexican border, a 2,00-mile wide area which has fewer agents patrolling it than New York has cops (about half the amount actually). Where there is actually some kind of fence, it’s simply not monitored enough to stop things like what was recently caught on film live by a Mexican TV station (below).

During a segment about cartel-related cross-border shootings in Nogales, Arizona, an Azteca Noticias crew accidentally caught two alleged smugglers, wearing huge backpacks, climbing down the fence to the American side.

When the two criminals touched down, one of them made a call on his cellphone, appearing to be receiving instructions. Trying to keep low to the ground, the two crossed the street and briefly hid behind some bushes.

Eventually noticing they were caught on camera, they began shouting at the crew to stop filming. When the news crew refused, the thugs scaled the wall, fleeing back to Mexico, the reporter saying, “I am only doing my job, son.”

Here’s the video via Daily Mail:

So what’s the root of the drug-trafficking problem? Here’s one Mexico-based political analyst on the Mexican government’s “deep-rooted complicity” in (and America’s mishandling of) the $40 billion industry:

As a political analyst living and working in Mexico for the last three decades, I have watched with horror how the United States-Mexico drug war strategy has led to the explosion of violence and criminal activity here. The deep-rooted complicity between government officials and security forces on the one hand and cartels on the other means that the training, equipment and firepower given in aid and sold to the Mexican government fuel violence on both sides.

The lines blur. The cartels are not fighting the state for political power; they are seeking to protect a $40 billion drug-trafficking business that has been converted into a war for control of territory, a war against the people.

As the New York Times highlighted in January, the cartel war in Mexico is “evolving far beyond the drug trade,” the cartels now “fight[ing] for political power itself,” while Mexico’s corrupt politicians angle for their own piece of the $40 billion pie. The result is even more capacity for the cartels to get their drugs into America. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has pulled back on enforcement in the region and “scaled back” deportations.