Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol
Local 2544
March 23, 2006
Jim Kolbe Assists Illegal Immigration - Mr. Kolbe has done more to hinder the Border Patrol agents in Tucson Sector, and to help illegal aliens successfully further their illegal entries into this country than any other politician we can think of. Kolbe forces the Border Patrol in the Tucson Sector to move its checkpoints every seven days, for reasons only known to Mr. Kolbe himself.
You will not find one Border Patrol agent or manager who agrees with him. Without ever making one arrest or spending one minute patrolling the border he's a self-proclaimed expert on border law enforcement (riding in parades and having your picture taken with real Border Patrol agents doesn't count). He refuses to listen to the experts who do the job every day.
Alien smugglers utilize these mandatory checkpoint moves to their advantage. We could cite plenty of specific examples here, but we won't because we don't want to give them any ideas. Kolbe also directly causes inexcusable safety and health problems for our agents.
There are no safe checkpoints in this Sector because of Jim Kolbe. He won't allow us to build them properly. Our agents are inexcusably exposed to dangerous situations at the checkpoints every day because of Kolbe. This has been going on for years.
Despite all of his excuses and despite all his wasteful government-funded studies and "investigations" into this checkpoint issue, we defy him to give us one good reason for making our jobs so much harder and for making it so much easier for illegal immigrants to get into this country.
Local 2544 represents Border Patrol agents and non-supervisory employees in the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, covering most of the State of Arizona. We are the largest Local in the Border Patrol.
This is one of the kinder things that the Border Patrol agents in Local 2544 have said about Jim Kolbe. The stuff they've posted about him on their website in the past has been pretty damning.