Border bucks go offshore - Debate surrounds concept of donations to other nations

Daily Bulletin ^ | 2/17/06 | Sara A. Carter

[NormsRevenge]

Critics of U.S. border security policy already contend the nation's borders are porous -- lacking in sufficient manpower and technology -- yet the federal government spends hundreds of millions of dollars to help secure other countries' boundaries.

More than 1,000 Customs and Border Protection officers and agents are deployed to Iraq, Honduras, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico to train military and law enforcement personnel in securing their borders, tracking people through rural terrain, and anti-terrorism, according to the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Over the past 10 years, nearly $400 million was allocated to Mexico from the U.S. State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and the Department of Defense to train, equip and assist Mexican military and law enforcement, according to the State Department's Web site.

But beyond Mexico's funding, hundreds of millions more are spent to deploy border agents and instructors to foreign lands, angering agents who feel that the U.S. border is severely neglected.

"I think it's nice that our government wants to help other countries to secure their borders," said TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Union, which represents more than 10,000 agents. "But wouldn't it be much better to use our scarce resources to secure our own porous borders. We need our men here, not in Honduras."

In mid-December 2005, U.S. agents participated for the first time in a two-week training program with Mexican law enforcement called Comitan Chiapas. The training took place along the Mexico/Guatemala border, said Salvador Zamora, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

Zamora, who also attended the training session, said the binational training with Mexico and the United States focused exclusively on search and rescue -- not on border security.

"It's really at the request of the country," Zamora said. "If we see that it does not impact our country's operations, we assist in training and border security."

In Honduras, U.S. border agents have been training and assisting Honduran law enforcement and military for more than three years as part of a binational effort, Zamora added.

"The U.S. government has been training foreign police forces for many years," Zamora said. "We're not sharing trade secrets or tactics that we consider to be sensitive. Investing time and effort in these countries allows us to train foreign military and law enforcement to look for weapons of mass destruction. It extends our borders, our training, and would give us an advantage at intercepting these threats before they arrive to our border."

Millions of dollars and manpower also were deployed to Iraq to train Iraqi soldiers and police how to better secure Iraq's border, according to the State Department and Customs and Border Protection.

But many fear that training could be used against U.S. forces.

"The Bush administration has crossed the line by deploying Border Patrol agents to train Mexico and other foreign governments on how to secure their borders, while ignoring our own," said Andy Ramirez, chairman of Friends of the Border Patrol, a Chino-based nonprofit organization supporting border agents. "The training included sign-cutting and anti-terrorism techniques, which have assisted the incursions across our southern border by military personnel and smugglers."

According to a May 6, 2004, Border Patrol press release, nearly 1,400 Mexican fire and law enforcement personnel were trained by U.S. agents in search and rescue operations. However, the search and rescue operations also included simulated firearms training, sign-cutting (a process of tracking illegal aliens through rural terrain) and anti-terrorism training.

"Mexico has been extremely uncooperative when it comes to assisting us in securing the southern border," Bonner said. "Regardless of the training, there is no incentive for these countries to stop their immigrants from crossing the border into the United States. Honduras, Mexico and Guatemala use us for remittances. Until we can secure our own borders, we have to be very circumspect in spending money to secure another nation's border."

Hardrick Crawford, a former FBI special agent and head of the El Paso Bureau, spent many years training Mexican law enforcement personnel and said binational partnerships are difficult in nations where corruption among law enforcement officers is common.

"Sometimes you're working with a police official, and you're talking to a cartel member," Crawford said. "The problem is you never know who to trust and how much they are going to use against you. It's a very dangerous game."

[MNJohnnie]

Because if the Latin American Countries learn to control their borders, it makes controlling ours easier.