We Could Stop Mexican Immigration, Drug Trafficking, Cartel Violence, and Our Water Problems With One Twist of a Spigot

The solution to all of these problems is so simple, and yet seemingly so elusive, as there exists a multitude of ulterior motivations for ensuring they remain obfuscated and unresolved. If it could ever gain even a foothold in the national consciousness and was given the correct political framing, it could be used as a single powerful diplomatic lever for rectifying decades of non-White immigration, drug/human trafficking, cartel violence and death, the intentional destruction of arable American farmland, and the livelihoods of the farmers who struggle to survive there.

By now you’ve probably seen an endless parade of images of Lake Mead drying up, with lake boats stranded high and dry next to long-ago-forgotten bodies in 55-gallon drums emerging on its now visible and fractured bottom.

Lake Mead’s “bathtub ring”.

Mob message in a barrel.

The U.S. government has called for drastic water cutbacks due to a “23-year megadrought brought on by climate change” and is now mandating that Arizona and Nevada have to cut back the most, while Mexico only has to cut back marginally. Yep, you heard that right: Mexico.

In predictable and prescriptively anti-White policymaking, White wealthy nations must “make it rain” taxpayer dollars directed toward international efforts to combat climate change by sending those dollars to undeveloped/developing non-White countries to help them pollute less and cool down the planet, or something. In reality, this money is used to aid development, which rapidly increases consumption and subsequent demand for more goods and raw materials. It’s a White to black and brown wealth transfer masquerading as noble altruism to Save the Planet™ that in fact wreaks even greater environmental havoc, but this article isn’t about climate change. For now, let’s leave that politically-fraught issue aside for a moment and instead consider one predicated on basic common sense.

Most of the general public is not aware that since 1944 there has been a bilateral agreement in place between the United States and Mexico that mandates how water is shared between the two countries from both the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers. Together, these rivers represent two-thirds of the 1,954-mile-long southern border between the two countries and there is a long history of conflict over how water from those two rivers is used, and more importantly, to whom it belongs. As early as the 1800s, there have been, unsurprisingly, complaints by American citizens of Mexicans diverting massive quantities of water from both rivers into Mexico – and away from the United States.

In a sane America, the solution to this problem is quite straightforward and with a mountain of legal precedent. Water law, both in the United States and internationally, has evolved to become appropriative; that is, if you use the water, you have the right to it. Further, the “Harmon Doctrine”, followed a well-understood principle of international law that stated that “a nation has general and absolute sovereignty over those resources within its territory.”

Did the 1944 U.S.-Mexico Water Treaty follow either of these well-established principles of U.S. or international law? Not in the slightest. Without getting into tortured minutia of the treaty, it is essentially a one-sided agreement whereby the U.S. supplies Mexico with 5x as much water as Mexico is expected to contribute to the U.S. with zero enforcement mechanisms. In the specific context of the Colorado River, it is all U.S. give and all Mexican take. To call the agreement on the Rio Grande unfavorable to the United States is an understatement.

This is what they mean by “equity”.

For the geographically impaired, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are both reservoirs that were created to contain the flow of the Colorado River. Lake Mead is located 24 miles outside of Las Vegas and was created with the construction of the Hoover Dam in 1933. Lake Powell is on the border of Utah and Arizona and was created with the Glen Canyon Dam dam in 1966.

You are now geographically handicapable.

Now let’s do some basic math: Lake Mead can hold up to 28,945,000 acre-feet of water at full capacity, while Lake Powell can hold 25,166,000 acre-feet. Both reservoirs have roughly left 7M acre-feet apiece. If you’re wondering why they don’t use gallons as a measurement unit instead of “acre-feet”, it’s because there are 325,851 gallons per 1 acre-foot.

The water treaty mandates that the United States divert 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year to Mexico and has been doing so, without interruption, for 78 years. 78 X 1.5M = 117M acre-feet. That doesn’t even factor in the 200,000 acre-feet per year that Mexico is allowed to take from Lake Mead in the event of a surplus.

Colorado River water is diverted to Mexico at Morelos Dam (picture below), located 1 mile downstream from where the California-Mexico border intersects the river.

“Climate Change”

With that amount of water, we could fill up Lake Mead and Lake Powell twice and have some left over for 22 million White Californians to water their grass, wash their car, and get a daily shower.

As if all of that were bad enough, there are two international reservoirs along the Rio Grande River to which the U.S. and Mexico are both expected to contribute – the Amistad and the Falcon. Under the treaty, Mexico is required to deliver (not divert) 350,000 acre-feet per year to these reservoirs, which the United States paid for and built. Even when the southwestern U.S. is not experiencing drought conditions, farmers in Texas require water from these reservoirs to maintain their crop yields. Mexico can miss contributing (not taking) its annually required share as long as it delivers at least 1.75M acre-feet within a 5-year water cycle.

Mexico has “sent” (read: not take) less than half of what it owes this year, meaning, it has taken over half of what it is supposed to not divert under the treaty. Since the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) started keeping track of Mexico’s water diversions in the 1950s, it has missed its five-year deadline four times—and three times since the 90s. The 90s were only 25 years ago, so that’s 60% of the time. The Amistad and Falcon reservoirs are now at 27% and 9% capacity, respectively.

Per the treaty, in the event of a drought, Mexico can simply opt out of this arrangement altogether, while the U.S. can only reduce what it supplies to Mexico if it also reduces what states like Arizona and Nevada consume. The treaty does not explain this lopsided difference in standard.

Since the water treaty does not impose sanctions for noncompliance and has no enforcement mechanism, some Texans began petitioning the U.S. government to apply pressure on Mexico. Washington, D.C. all but politicians laughed in their faces and told them it was a “local problem”.

In 1994, the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), flung open the doors of the U.S. economy to Mexico and sent what was once protected American agriculture south of the border. Not only did this further obliterate the profitability of American farming and destroy countless livelihoods in the process, but it also meant that Mexico would also consume ever more of our water. At one Washington meeting, Susan Combs, Texas agriculture commissioner at the time, showed State Department officials a satellite photo of a green oasis in the middle of Chihuahua.

“They took a desert, and used our water to build an agricultural heaven.”

Meanwhile, in agricultural heaven, Mexican farmers living large on the rotting corpse of American agriculture decided to take a stand in 2020 as they experienced the literal downstream impacts of milking the American udder dry for the past seven decades. They took control of the La Boquilla dam, which Mexican President Obrador had promised to tap to pay Mexico’s water debts. After a brief “show of force” by the Mexican National Guard, they disappeared leaving the Mexican farmers to stand around grilling and drinking beer by the dam.

While we were told the election was being stolen in 2020, it was really Lake Mead.

In September 2020, just 3 days before the deadline, Mexico satisfied its debt by releasing its stored water at Amistad. At the time, Mexican President Obrador said that he was thankful to Donald Trump for being respectful on the issue of water.

“It is one of the things I have to thank President Trump for, that he has been respectful. Before they used to get involved, as if we were not free and sovereign, not anymore, and for that we are very thankful.”

In other words, thank you for not letting the cat out of the bag, Donald. Other than a great deal of consternation about the future of the water treaty immediately before and after Trump took office in 2016/2017, I can’t recall, nor can I find a single quote from Trump on this issue.

As a modest start, I propose the following:

1. Immediate withdrawal from the U.S.-Mexico Water Treaty
2. Shut down the water flow at the Morelos Dam currently being diverted into Mexico, and begin retaining the much-needed 1.5M acre-feet of water/year in Lake Mead and Lake Powell
3. Cut off Mexican access to the Amistad and Falcon reservoirs
4. Deploy 100,000 U.S. military personnel to the southern border
5. Declare an indefinite immigration moratorium
6. Recall military personnel from bases in Germany and Japan and begin construction of new bases every 50 miles along the southern border
7. Order U.S. military personnel to shoot all drug, gun, and human smugglers who cross the border into the U.S.
8. Initiate clandestine CIA operations to seek out and destroy cartels and cartel networks
9. Tear down Donald Trump’s border wall and sell it for scrap
10. Order the Army Corps of Engineers to begin construction of a 100 feet high cement wall running the full length of the Mexican side of the Rio Grande to protect our border and our water
11. Schedule a join conference call with the Mexican President and Canadian Prime Minister and inform them that the United States is rescinding the NAFTA agreement effective immediately
12. Begin immediate and expedited deportations of anyone not in the United States prior to the passage 1965 Hart-Celler Act

As we uncovered on FTN over 3 years ago, there is black letter law – Public Law 85-804 (50 U.S.C. §§ 1431-35) – already in existence that would enable the president to devote unlimited funding toward these projects. In fact, President Biden invoked this very statute to legally devote the virtually unlimited funding and resources it did, without Congress, to spur government action around COVID-19.

None of these steps require any changes to existing law, they do not require an emergency declaration, nor do they require authorization from Congress. The president doesn’t have to make a proclamation or invoke the Insurrection Act. He must simply act.