Posted on 02/23/2005 7:19:21 AM PST by MikeJ75
Across an expanse of desert where nothing marks the Mexican border but a flimsy line of barbed wire, Border Patrol agent Mitch King flies his helicopter low to search for signs of illegal entry into the USA.
He spots footprints and tire tracks and hovers to get a better look. If the sandy impressions are fresh, he'll radio agents on the ground. But King's experienced eyes tell him these prints are at least a day or two old. Now, they serve only as evidence that more people have crossed the border illegally without getting caught.
More than three years after the terrorist attacks in 2001, the 11,000 men and women who serve as the border's front-line defense are overwhelmed. Despite an influx of new technology, such as underground sensors and cameras that pan the desert, agents catch only about one-third of the estimated 3 million people who cross the border illegally every year.
Most of the illegals are poor Mexican laborers looking for work. But officials are alarmed that a growing number hail from Central and South America, Asia, even Mideast countries such as Syria and Iran. In 2003, the Border Patrol arrested 39,215 so-called "OTMs," or other-than-Mexicans, along the Southwest border. In 2004, the number jumped to 65,814.
Those figures worry intelligence and Homeland Security officials, who say al-Qaeda leaders want to smuggle operatives and weapons of mass destruction across the nation's porous land borders. James Loy, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress last week, "Several al-Qaeda leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons."
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, says the Border Patrol has "reliable intelligence that there are terrorists living in South America, assimilating the culture and learning the language" in order to blend in with Mexicans crossing the border.
"We really don't know who comes into this country illegally over the Southwest border," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., says. "This is a big problem."
A steady stream heading north
The independent 9/11 Commission's report warned in August that "the challenge for national security in an age of terrorism is to prevent the very few people who may pose overwhelming risks from entering or remaining in the United States undetected." And that's a daunting task along these stretches of border in the Southwest.
In Mitch King's territory of remote south-central New Mexico, 109 agents work a 53-mile section of border. They patrol 14,000 square miles of rugged terrain using helicopters, horses and all-terrain and sport-utility vehicles.
Much of the area is far out of reach of the Border Patrol's cameras and sensors. It's easily accessible, however, to Mexicans and others who head north illegally across miles of sand dotted with nothing but the occasional cow or coyote. Forced east by tighter security along the California and Arizona borders, migrants cross here on foot and in cars, morning, noon and night - as many as 200 a day along this relatively small stretch of land.
"It goes on all day long, 24/7," says Richard Moody, the agent in charge of the area. His agents often work 14- to 16-hour days under stressful conditions. Late last month, the driver of a car full of people crossing illegally hit a Border Patrol agent with his side mirror while trying to run him down.
The agents who work for Moody in Luna and two other New Mexico counties caught 170 non-Mexicans in 2002, 293 in 2003 and 678 in 2004. Most are from South and Central America. But the agents also have picked up illegal border-crossers from China, southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Moody's agents are up against increasingly sophisticated smugglers. Even as the Border Patrol has gotten new high-tech equipment, so have the people they're trying to catch. Smugglers use two-way radios, cell phones, global positioning systems and other high-tech equipment to watch agents' movements and alert each other when the coast is clear.
"Ten years ago, they probably could not have bought a pair of infrared night-vision goggles on the open market, but now they can," says Robert Boatright, assistant chief of the Border Patrol in El Paso. "We see them changing tactics as we change tactics."
That can be unsettling out in the desert where, unless there's a full moon, the nights are so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face. "We're under 24-hour surveillance by them," Moody says. "They have a very extensive counterintelligence operation. It certainly keeps us on our toes."
Ironically, the war on terrorism abroad has slowed the government's ability to secure the border in some areas.
Along King's helicopter route, roughly 7 miles of the border are marked by car barriers - 3- to 4-foot high, cement-filled pieces of casing pipe sunk deep in concrete and set every couple of feet. The barriers are in place mostly around the little town of Columbus, the start of a well-traveled smuggling route north to Deming.
The Border Patrol would like the barrier extended, but the Army engineering units and National Guard troops who did the hard work of installing the pipes over the past two years are no longer available.
"We'd like to get the whole area done," Moody says. "But there are two fronts in the war, and everyone's out of pocket now in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites)."
High technology, low staffing
Agents say new technology - remote video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles, more underground sensors, radiation detectors and access to criminal databases and terrorist watch lists - has helped them do their job.
At official ports of entry along the border and at checkpoints set up along highways heading north, the Homeland Security Department has stepped up security since the Sept. 11 attacks. Foreigners who need a visa to enter the USA must be photographed, fingerprinted and checked against terrorist watch lists. Cars and trucks are checked with dogs and radiation-detection equipment.
As a result, those seeking illegal entry have gone elsewhere. "When you crack down in one area, they're going to try to exploit weaknesses in another area," Bonner says.
President Bush (news - web sites)'s proposed 2006 budget calls for more high-tech gear for the Border Patrol, including $125 million to test and buy more radiation detectors and $51 million to improve sensors and video equipment.
Those who use the equipment, however, say there's also a desperate need for more "boots on the line" to track and catch illegal immigrants. "The technology is great, but it doesn't actually go out and get the bodies," says Jim Stack, an agent in El Paso. "We are extremely short-staffed."
Although the government has added about 1,300 agents to the force since 2001, there still aren't nearly enough to patrol the 6,900 miles of border with Mexico and Canada.
Recognizing that need, Congress late last year authorized a near doubling of the size of the agency by adding 2,000 agents a year for the next five years. But this month, the Bush administration's budget requested $37 million to pay for one-tenth as many agents - 210 - in 2006.
Critics are calling that a grave mistake. "Until we make the investments necessary to protect the border, the country is seriously at risk," says former congressman Jim Turner of Texas, who was the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee last year.
"The holes that remain in our border security systems are not small," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, says. "They are gaping, and they are glaring to our terrorist enemies. They are coming for us."
U.S. POPClock Projection
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 2/23/2005 at 2:01:06 PM EST is
295,529,505
COMPONENT SETTINGS
One birth every.................................. 8 seconds
One death every.................................. 13 seconds
One international migrant (net) every............ 26 seconds
Net gain of one person every..................... 12 seconds
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock
Hmmmm...Wonder if the census considers illegals in this "migrant" number.
This census number of one person every 12 seconds ..If I`m doing the math right, that`s 2,628,000 people every year. This article is claiming 3 million illegals are coming into this country every year. If so then that means they are actually out numbering the people who are added to this country legally. Hello Houston, we are being invaded.
Sounds like a story planted by the Border Patrol union to get more pay for their members.
Why should business be punished? They pay more than you or I in taxes. Let the government do their job and stop making the private sector do what the government is extracting tax dollars to do itself.
The managers and owners are breaking the law, they should be punished under the law. That includes jail.
you never answered my question as to why the private sector should be enforcing laws that the government is taxing us to do itself.
"But officials are alarmed that a growing number hail from Central and South America, Asia, even Mideast countries such as Syria and Iran. In 2003, the Border Patrol arrested 39,215 so-called "OTMs," or other-than-Mexicans, along the Southwest border. In 2004, the number jumped to 65,814."
Don't miss the current FR poll:
Which of the following is the best way to solve the illegal immigration problem?
Seal and militarize the borders
45.0%
Beef up and enforce existing law
39.3%
Some form of guest worker program
9.3%
Other
3.7%
Undecided/Pass
2.7%
I mean, those would be 1920s and 1940s technology.
Not true. Theirs is one lousy dangerous job. Their lives are on the line daily, and they aren't paid nearly enough for the thankless job they do. Their hands are tied from above and they aren't allowed to do what needs to be done. They're the one group of government employees I'd gladly pay MORE! Lots more!
Sounds like you have an uncle in the INS. These guys are the federal version of dunkin donuts cops. Get real.
But not alarmed enough to actually do anything about them. "OTM"s are released in the US with a promise to appear for their deportation hearing in 60 days. Surprisingly, 75-90% (estimates vary) don't make those hearings. Why we bother to apprehend anyone is an increasing mystery.
Nope, sounds 100% like the truth.
Maybe on your planet....but here in Kaleephornia they'll just go on welfare and show up at the Emergency Room.
Yep, just like having several million uninvited, unwanted guests in your home, and paying for the party.
They are not enforcing laws. The border laws are not the one they are violating in hiring illegals. There is a seperate set of laws that govern hiring ot legal residents and citizens. If you hire an illegal you break these laws and I think that jail needs to be one of the punishments for this.
Then you close welfare and send have an immigration agent in the hospital. I know hunting on a baited field is wrong but it works.
We need unbiased confirmation - not propaganda from some government bureaucrat.
No problem, 100% unbiased.
I'm sure.
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