Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword by Senator Heidi Haitkamp -- Part I: Costs and consequences. Red Shoes "walk up" ; Lights off, pistols ready ; Stepping on the balloon ; An expensive juggling act ; Sanctuaries and "slam dunks" ; Drug cartels and Decaturs ; What about demand? ; Too much, too fast ; Barriers -- Part II: Countries of origin. Red Shoes Honduras ; Stolen harvests ; Two-legged predators ; Prison or the cemetery ; Silencing the canary ; Red Shoes on the road again -- Part III: What needs to change. Reboot command of the border ; Respect and work with Mexico ; Create a persistent presence ; Reduce demand for drugs and illegal labor ; Support peace and security in our hemisphere -- Epilogue: Orange Shoes in Arizona.

"From one of America's most prominent philanthropists, an eye-opening, myth-busting new perspective on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Howard G. Buffett has seen first-hand the devastating impact of cheap Mexican heroin and other opiate cocktails across America. Fueled by failing border policies and lawlessness in Mexico and Central America, drugs are pouring over the nation's southern border in record quantities, turning Americans into addicts and migrants into drug mules--and killing us in record numbers. People often talk about America's insecure borders and our raging opioid crisis as if they are separate issues. To Buffett, a landowner on the U.S. border with Mexico and, after five years as a sworn law enforcement officer, now the sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, the two are intimately connected. Ineffective border policies not only put residents in border states like Texas and Arizona in harm's way, they put American lives in states such as Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont at risk. Mexican cartels have grown astonishingly powerful by exploiting both the gaps in our border security strategy and the desperation of migrants--all while profiting enormously off America's growing addiction to drugs. The solution isn't a wall. In this groundbreaking and vivid book, Buffett takes readers to the rugged terrain of the Arizona and Texas border country, where the drama and heartbreak of drug smuggling and migrant crossings play out every day. He also takes us to Mexico and El Salvador, showing how devastating poverty and cartel violence spur migration. Supplemented by sixteen pages of Buffett's own photography, [this book] outlines a realistic, effective, and bipartisan approach to fighting cartels, strengthening our national security, and tackling the roots of the chaos south of the border."--Dust jacket.