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Livestock Weekly: Texas border issues

Texan

Well-known member
Border Patrol Chief Says Broken
Border Not A Recent Development

By David Bowser

KINGSVILLE —
"There is a tremendous amount of change that is happening in the Border Patrol today," says David Aguilar, Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol. "The reason that change is occurring is because of the amount of interest that this country has in bringing security to our borders."

The nation's highest ranking Border Patrol agent was in Kingsville to speak to the South Texans' Property Rights Association, a two year-old organization of ranchers and landowners.

Probably the loudest mantra in newspapers and on television today, Aguilar says, is the challenges along the border.

"The question I've asked some of these folks that complain about broken borders," Aguilar says, "is why all of a sudden did you wake up one day and realize that the borders are broken?"

Aguilar asks why there weren't reports on breaking borders 15 years ago.

"Nobody was paying attention then," Aguilar says. "This country was ignoring the borders."

When the borders were breaking, he says the Border Patrol and local sheriffs were working very hard, but the problem had not caught the public's eye.

Since 1986 when the Immigration Reform and Control Act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, Aguilar says, it's gotten progressively worse.

"Today, we have broken borders," Aguilar says. "I'm here to tell you the borders basically are broken."

But he adds that the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement officers, sheriffs and police departments, are working hard to take care of the borders.

"We should be very, very concerned about what's happening on our borders today," Aguilar says. "The good news is that a lot of folks who have been identified as illegal aliens, and more important, illegal aliens with criminal records, were identified because they were apprehended. We actually arrested them."

Still, he admits that there are challenges along the border.

Born in Edinburgh, Texas, Aguilar served part of his 29 years in the Border Patrol in Laredo, Hebbronville and Rio Grande City, so he's familiar with South Texas.

"For the longest time, the border was ignored," Aguilar says. "The Border Patrol was ignored. We did everything we could with what little we had to secure this country's borders."

Today, with the pressure brought to bear on politicians from the news media, the Border Patrol has increased funding which translates into more technology and manpower.

Aguilar says last year, the U.S. Border Patrol seized 1.3 million tons of narcotics at the border and apprehended 1.1 million aliens trying to come into the United States between ports of entry.

Of the aliens apprehended, more than 100,000 had criminal backgrounds and more than 150,000 were OTMs, the Border Patrol classification for “other than Mexican.”

"On our nation's borders, the challenge that we face, the real challenge, is border security and national security," Aguilar says.

Aguilar says the Border Patrol now has the resources and the national fortitude to finally do something about the challenges along the border.

He says the differences he has seen over the last 29 years of his career are like day and night.

"Especially in the fortitude this country has today compared to what we had way back there," Aguilar says. "That gives me good reason to feel good about where we're going and how we're going to get there."

The primary risks Aguilar outlines are the narcotic traffickers and potential terrorists.

"We are fighting a war unlike any other war we've fought in this country," Aguilar says. "If we think there is not a possibility of our borders being vulnerable to terrorists and coming across our borders, we've got a problem."

That is a real possibility, he says, though not as high a possibility as some people portray it.

"We cannot wait until something happens and then secure our borders," Aguilar says. "That's why it's absolutely critical that we take the actions that we're taking today to secure our borders."

Most of the activity between ports of entry, 98 percent, is along the U.S. border with Mexico. Aguilar says 58 percent of all illegal alien apprehensions last year were in the Border Patrol's Arizona area of operations. Fifty-nine percent of all narcotics apprehended by the Border Patrol, 1.3 million tons last year, was in Arizona. California's border with Mexico accounted for 23 percent of the aliens and about five percent of the narcotics.

Texas accounted for 19 percent of the illegal aliens and about 36 percent of the narcotics.

Aguilar says certain routes up through Mexico are used by smugglers and other routes from the border on into the U.S. Smugglers keep close track of law enforcement activity at border crossing points and can react quickly when one area is closed down. They can move contraband up through staging areas south of the border to move through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona or California.

"What they're looking for is infrastructure that's going to facilitate their means of entry into the United States," Aguilar says, "and then the way they're going to make their way into the United States."

Aguilar says the Border Patrol started looking seriously at the borders in 1993, when the chief Border Patrol agent in McAllen was transferred to El Paso.

"El Paso was being overrun," Aguilar says. "The downtown area was being overrun by illegal aliens and narcotics."

The new chief assigned to El Paso tried to hold the line. He shifted the flow of traffic to San Diego.

"The reason the shift occurred," Aguilar says, "was that the original infrastructure that had been available to them in El Paso was no longer available. They looked for the next easiest route of ingress into the United States."

As the Border Patrol sought to shut down access to the U.S. from Tijuana, smugglers moved their routes through South Texas. The Border Patrol reacted with Operation Rio Grande.

"We increased the resources," Aguilar says. "We built some infrastructure. We worked with landowners and applied pressure down here. It hasn't gone away, but the numbers are down."

Smuggling is like water, Aguilar says. Smugglers will find the easiest way to get into the United States. They will follow the path of least resistance.

That led the smugglers back to Arizona, he says, and the Border Patrol responded with Operation Safeguard.

"The last remaining infrastructure of cities was where they hit," Aguilar says.

Juarez, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, is a city of about two to 2.5 million people. Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego, is about 1.5 to two million people.

Smugglers went from using the infrastructure of cities like Juarez and Tijuana to cities like Nogales with about 100,000 and Agua Prieta across from Douglas, Ariz., with a population of 28,000.

"These were the last areas they could use to jump off into the United States," Aguilar says.

They moved out into the mountains and desert.

As the environments of smuggling have changed, so have the operations. Aguilar says that in urban environments, such as El Paso or Brownsville or San Diego or Douglas, agents have seconds or minutes to identify and apprehend anybody coming across the border into the United States before they disappear into the crowds of the cities.

It is in these areas that the Border Patrol can use fences, lights and roads.

The illegal immigrants try to move quickly through these areas to get into the malls and get into stores and businesses where they can mix with locals.

In rural areas, the Border Patrol has minutes to hours to identify and apprehend illegal aliens. There is no longer an infrastructure in which they can become lost.

"So our tactics and our equipment varies," Aguilar says.

The Border Patrol makes more use of video surveillance camera systems.

"Down here on the river, we actually ride the river on boats," he says.

He says they erect heavy metal barriers to prevent smugglers from driving across the borders. They use planes and helicopters in rural areas to get to the illegal incursions.

"In South Texas," Aguilar says, "we still use horse patrols. It's the only way to get there sometimes."

In the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, the Border Patrol has a forward operating base where agents are flown in and live for 12 to 30 days at a time.

"They work 12 hours on and 12 hours off," Aguilar says. "They patrol that general area of operations."

Most of the Border Patrol's tactics are intrusive on private landowners to some degree, Aguilar says.

"We try to minimize it," he says. "We use horses instead of vehicles wherever we can."

The next step in patrolling the border, Aguilar says, is SBI Net, or Secure Border Initiative.

Narcotics seizures are up 30 percent this year all along the border.

"In 2005, we apprehended over 154,000 OTMs," Aguilar says. "Of those, over 74 percent came from this part of the country."

In 2006, that flow was reduced by more than 70 percent, Aguilar says.

"We are no longer releasing Other Than Mexicans as we were in the past," Aguilar says.

With the human trafficking down, Aguilar says they are able to spend more time on narcotics trafficking.

In the future, Aguilar says they will be able to detect any illegal incursion along the border.

"We need to be able to classify what that illegal incursion is," Aguilar says. "In other words, is it a person, a vehicle, a cow, a horse or a group of people?"

They've got to respond to that incursion and resolve the outcome, whether it is with arrests, deportations or something else.

"Resolution is very important," Aguilar says. "We arrest, we deport, and we prosecute."

All of this is part of the SBI Net. The backbone of SBI Net is ground radar and camera coverage, including thermal imaging cameras and a laser range finder.

"The high resolution of the equipment that we're getting will be able to tell us if it is a person, a group of people, a horse, so we don't have to waste time," Aguilar says.

They will also be able to tell when and how to approach the person to apprehend him or her.

It is a virtual fence, Aguilar says.

"We would prefer this," he says. "It's less intrusive."

The SBI Net will include unmanned aircraft, towers and mobile units.

"We will have the entire Southwest border covered by 2013," Aguilar says. "Not all of the border will be under this, but this is the capability that we will have."

Physical fences, he says, cost between one and three million dollars a mile, depending upon location.

In San Diego, the Border Patrol started building a fence in 1993.

"It took us 16 years to build 14 miles of fence," Aguilar says. "This year, we're going to build 70 miles of fence. Next year, we're going to build 225 miles of fence. The rate at which we're building more infrastructure and hiring personnel and getting technology is unprecedented."

That technology will build a virtual fence that is much less intrusive for landowners and is much more effective.

"One of these towers will give us coverage of seven, eight, nine miles versus one mile of physical fence," Aguilar says. "One of these towers will cost us about $750,000. It's a better, more efficient use of our money to get us the security we need."

The system is now being tested in Arizona, he says.

The Border Patrol has traditionally used thermal cameras alone that take two to three minutes to cover a swath of desert 10 miles in width. The system did not work well in extreme heat.

With ground surveillance radar, a 180 degree turn is accomplished every 10 seconds. With SBI Net, the Border Patrol expects 95 to 100 percent detection. The system can provide accurate GPS coordinates to agents on the ground and in the air and update those coordinates as targets move. The system is expected to be as effective at night as during the day.

But there is more than technology involved, Aguilar says. He says he would also like to see landowners involved in training new Border Patrol agents. He says they need to learn ranch etiquette.

"One of the most important things that I learned as a Border Patrol agent when I was in South Texas is, ‘Son, you leave that gate just the way you found it,’" Aguilar says. "If it was open, you leave it open. If it was closed, you close it. If you see something wrong, your best friend is that ranch foreman. Call him."

Aguilar says they teach that today to new agents, but he says they need local ranchers to reinforce those lessons.

He says not all of their recruits come from South Texas. Some of them come from New York or Chicago, and they have to be trained.

"The reason I bring that up," Aguilar says, "is because we're going to bring a lot of resources to South Texas, and it's important that we maintain relationships that we have built up over the years with the ranching community."

He says the landowners are absolutely critical to the effort to keep the border safe.

"We will give our best shot at putting on the ground the best qualified, the best trained agents that we can," Aguilar says.

Border Patrol has about 13,500 agents. When Aguilar first joined the Border Patrol there were about 2000 agents. By the end of calendar year 2008, the Border Patrol will have a strength of 18,000 agents, and it will be part of a larger, better coordinated effort under the Department of Homeland Security.

"For the first time in the history of the United States," Aguilar says, "we have one agency, one man in charge of the entire responsibility for our nation's borders."

Aguilar says the system isn't perfect, but they are working toward that end.

"One of the biggest challenges that we have is taking the old way of doing business, the old culture from which we came, and meshing them all together into one culture of border security," Aguilar says.

Aguilar says that from a budgetary standpoint, the Border Patrol has never had it better.

The culture he is talking about is how formerly different agencies operate together as one agency in a post-911 world.

He says the Border Patrol was picked up as a whole and put into the Homeland Security Department. He says little has changed concerning the organization of the Border Patrol since it was first established in 1924.

"What has changed is our approach, our way of thinking, the resources," Aguilar says.
 

Texan

Well-known member
Border Sheriff Describes Threat
Facing Border Lawmen, Citizens

By David Bowser

KINGSVILLE, Texas —
Sheriffs along the U.S.-Mexico border are aware of the national security threat posed by illegal aliens crossing the international boundary, but their major concern is the increasing violence being swept across the border and the safety of their county constituents.

Sigi Gonzales, Zapata County Sheriff and one of the organizers of the Southwest Border Sheriffs Association, speaking to a meeting of the South Texans' Property Rights Association here, indicated that border residents are in the middle of a battlefield.

There are 18 Texas counties along the Rio Grande border with Mexico.

"We are responsible for about 1276.7 miles of border," Gonzales said. "We are responsible for that even though the Border Patrol is also responsible. It is a federal problem but it does spill over to our territory also. We are the ones having to deal with this problem all along the 1278 miles of border."

Gonzales said those 18 sheriffs are also responsible for some 2,243,372 people in the 45,326 square miles that comprise their counties.

The Zapata County sheriff said they formed their coalition of counties in 2005 at Laredo out of frustration.

"We felt that the border area of the United States has always been neglected by the federal government," Gonzales said, "and we decided we would do something about it."

If nothing else, Gonzales said they felt they should bring up the problems along the border so the public would understand what was happening.

He said the border is very porous, wide open and very vulnerable.

First among the problems the sheriffs faced on a continuing basis was smuggling, both of humans and drugs.

"We also had problems with the lack of information being shared by the federal government, our federal partners," Gonzales said.

He said they often found out what the Border Patrol or FBI or any other federal agency was doing along the border through the news media. He said they watch CNN to find out what is happening along the border.

Gonzales said he's not a conspiracy buff, but he went so far as to ask legislators how this could happen.

While much has been said concerning drugs and illegal aliens coming into the United States, Gonzales said many of the problems border sheriffs have concern kidnappings and extortion.

"People along the border on the United States side are being kidnapped," Gonzales said, "and being taken back to Mexico."

It doesn't matter if the victims are involved in drug trafficking or not, he said. The sheriffs still have to respond to the kidnapping and extortion attempts.

"We have to respond to these calls anyway," Gonzales said.

The most wanted man in the United States could get kidnapped, he said, and people would come to the sheriff for help.

"We would have to do something about it," Gonzales said.

And it's not just along the border. Gonzales said they've had people kidnapped in Dallas and taken back across the border into Mexico.

The violence on the other side of the border often spills over to counties in Texas that are along the border, he said.

"We're seeing people coming in from Mexico to commit murders, to rob banks, assaults," Gonzales said, "or to commit kidnappings and then going back to Mexico. We can't catch them."

Gonzales said there are also landowner complaints about trash and fences being cut and gates being torn down. Cattle are eating the trash and dying. There have also been rural homes broken into.

Brewster County, the largest county in the state of Texas, is patrolled by three deputies. Cameron County has two deputy sheriffs. Jeff Davis County has three deputy sheriffs.

"What can we do?" Gonzales asked, "but we want to help."

The county residents deserve that help, he said, but it's all at the expense of the local taxpayers. On top of that, he said the IRS is knocking on the door demanding more money.

The counties are using up money to pay for autopsies, rescue efforts and law enforcement along the borders.

To Gonzales, the murders, kidnappings, burglaries and robberies are all a part of a domestic terrorism issue. He said the citizens of his county tell him they are scared and afraid.

Gonzales said it's not unusual to get a call from a worried parent saying he just found out that his son is supposed to be kidnapped that night.

"People are living in fear," Gonzales said.

He said the definition of terrorism that the FBI uses is the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group of two or more people against a person or property intended to coerce a government, a civilian population or any segment thereof.

He said that is what border counties are encountering.

Gonzales said the drug dealers who own the property on both the Mexican side of the border and the U.S. side of the border are narco-terrorists.

"Those people are terrorizing the population and the government," Gonzales contended.

To counter these problems, Gonzales said the border sheriffs formed Operation Linebacker.

The idea, he said, is to come up with a second line of defense to assist Customs and Border Patrol agents in the protection of the United States of America. He said the sheriffs want to prevent the smugglers and thugs from reaching their goal line and making a touchdown.

"We want to make sure we can identify, apprehend and prevent terrorists from entering this country," Gonzales said.

He said they focus on preventing immigrants from special interest countries from entering the United States. That includes seizing and preventing contraband of all kinds from entering the United States.

Gonzales said the Border Patrol is doing the best it can with the resources it has.

He applauded efforts to increase the number of Border Patrol agents, but noted that it takes a year of training before those new agents are on patrol. The border sheriffs can move more quickly. If they had more deputies, they could be more effective.

"It would take us two weeks," Gonzales said.

Gonzales said most sheriffs have a good working relationship with the Border Patrol, but even the Border Patrol doesn't have the resources it needs.

Gonzales said he invited members of Congress to his county to show them what is happening along the border. He showed them the border and explained how wide open it is.

The Border Patrol is protecting the border as best it can, but it's being pressured more and more.

"How can they do it without the resources?" Gonzales said.

The Border Patrol is limited in funding and manpower, as are the county sheriffs.

"There is minimal law enforcement presence along the border," Gonzales said, "because frankly, the area between the ports of entry is owned by the drug cartels."

There have been charges and counter-charges that Mexican soldiers have been involved in the drug smuggling. The Mexican government, in at least one instance, insisted that a group of uniformed smugglers that had been photographed were U.S. soldiers dressed as Mexican soldiers.

Gonzales said the sheriffs association took the pictures and sent them to analysts who told the sheriffs that those were Mexican military personnel.

Beyond Mexican nationals crossing the border illegally, Gonzales said the Border Patrol has what they call OTMs, “other than Mexican.” They are aliens from countries other than Mexico.

Gonzales said the Rio Grande Valley sector of the Border Patrol reported a 61 percent increase in human smuggling cases since MS13 gang members were arrested last year.

There have also been 55 assaults against law enforcement officers.

"This worries us," Gonzales said.

Assaults on law enforcement officers are on the rise, he said.

He said there have been instances where Muslims from the Middle East have been caught using fake passports and passing themselves off as Mexican nationals.

Gonzales said at least one of the Muslims caught was in Central America where there is supposedly a training camp for terrorists.

Some smugglers have admitted to bringing Middle Eastern individuals across the border, but Gonzales said at least one drug cartel has put out the word that they want this stopped because it increases the pressure on their drug smuggling operations by U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Gonzales said there were some 170 deaths in the U.S. last year that spilled over from drug violence across the border. The drug cartels have automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

"Our informants have told us on several occasions that the weapons we use are worthless compared what we could come up against with Mexican cartels," Gonzales said.

He said the mayor of Laredo sends police officers to the international bridge every time something happens in Nuevo Laredo.

In late January 2006, improvised explosive devices, the IEDs of Iraq infamy, were discovered by the Border Security Task Force.

There have been reports of snipers shooting at Border Patrol agents across the border. One sniper near Laredo kept shooting for several days.

Law enforcement officers near Donna, Texas, responded to the report of a kidnapping and came under fire from gunmen on both sides of the border. Some 300 to 400 rounds were fired within 10 minutes.

In New Mexico, Gonzales said pistols, a sawed-off shotgun and Iraqi credentials were found in restrooms where illegal aliens had been harbored.

A Hudspeth County deputy was told by drug traffickers not to go down to the riverbank any more or something would happen to him.

In March 2007, a Border Patrol agent in Westlaco, Texas, was threatened by a drug cartel.

Zapata County saw seven kidnappings in 2005.

"In 2006, there were seven kidnappings in Cameron County," Gonzales said.

In one of the kidnappings, he said, a woman came out of Wal-Mart, put her baby in the car seat in the back seat and put her packages in the trunk. A person came up behind her and put a gun to her head, put her in the car and drove across the border into Mexico.

"It's happening," Gonzales said. "It's happened several times."

There have been reports of people crossing the border carrying automatic weapons. These are not people coming into the United States looking for jobs on ranches, Gonzales pointed out.

Some of the illegal aliens apprehended have spoken Spanish, but not the type of Spanish spoken in Mexico or Central America.

A member of MS13, the violent Central American gang that bombed a bus in Honduras, killing 20 people, has been caught four different times crossing the border into the U.S.

In July 2006, a detention officer at the Starr County jail went across the border to visit his girlfriend. He was found four days later. His hands had been bound behind his back and his eyes bandaged with duct tape. He had been shot in the head.

Gonzales said his office found patches with Arabic writing in the pocket of a jacket of a man they had arrested.

"We got an analysis from the FBI as to what these patches meant," Gonzales said.

The FBI said they represented sacrifice by Jihadists.

Unhappy with the FBI's analysis, the sheriff contacted Israeli Intelligence and Egyptian government officials, who translated the Arabic as “the person who dies protecting his homeland is rewarded in death for eternity.”

Israeli officials told the sheriff that the patches were from a special Islamic commando unit headquartered in France.

Gonzales said he picked border reports at random for a couple of days last December. They showed an illegal alien from Somalia picked up in Uvalde. An Iraqi was picked up in Del Rio. A Pakistani was picked up in Del Rio. An MS13 gang member was arrested in Eagle Pass.

Two men accosted a security officer at a water treatment plant along the border. They tried to take his gun and shoot him. When they failed, they escaped into Mexico.

"This happens all the time," Gonzales said.

A Guatemalan was arrested in Kingsville. He was a member of what is called the Texas Syndicate. He was arrested on a warrant charging him as an accessory to murder.

Another man was arrested coming into the U.S. near Mission, Texas. He was wanted on a warrant charging him with attempting to kill a law enforcement officer. Another man was arrested coming across the border on a warrant charging him with a double murder in Houston.

Several sex offenders were arrested coming across the border near Columbus, N.M.

"We have no choice," Gonzales said. "We have to pick up this fight to save our counties."

He said the sheriffs didn't ask to be thrown into this battle, but they aren't going to leave the border to narco-terrorists, smugglers and thugs.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
The primary risks Aguilar outlines are the narcotic traffickers and potential terrorists.

"We are fighting a war unlike any other war we've fought in this country," Aguilar says. "If we think there is not a possibility of our borders being vulnerable to terrorists and coming across our borders, we've got a problem."

And like every WAR we've fought since 1945, we're fighting a halfassed war- allowing the politicians/ACLU/PC promoters to micromanage and refusing to put in enough resources and effort until we're losing or have already lost the war.....

Here is a snippet I found in another article about the UK Doctor bombing plots:

Now the question becomes: How should the historic population of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland deal with these Muslims in their midst?

One thing is clear: No nation that values its own survival will tolerate murderous terrorists, or those who harbor murderous terrorists. The British cherish their civil liberties, but they have demonstrated that they cherish their survival more. When World War II broke out, British security officials interviewed all Germans and Italians living in the country; it was a mass loyalty test, and 27,000 flunked and were locked up.

Was it fair? Was due process followed? The British authorities let the lawyers and historians sort it out - which they could, because the good guys won that war. Oh, and by the way, during the war, immigration into Britain slowed to a trickle.

Back to America, also a Muslim terrorist target. Half of the Washington governing class, led by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, is still angry at the American people for blocking "comprehensive" immigration reform, and so Chertoff has stopped incremental border security measures, as a way of punishing us for being uppity.

Meanwhile, the other half of the D.C. governing class, led by Democrats in Congress, wants to shut down the terrorist-interrogation facility at Guantánamo and investigate, instead, the Bush administration's overseas wiretap program.

So even as Britain wakes up to the terrible threat from within, America still sleeps.


http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppin035279380jul03,0,4628864.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
And like every WAR we've fought since 1945, we're fighting a halfassed war- allowing the politicians to micromanage and refusing to put in enough resources and effort until we're losing or have already lost the war.....
Yeah, there's no telling how many Arab types have already come across masquerading as Mexicans. Or tried and just got sent back to Mexico. An Arab could easily pass for a Mexican if he slicked down with WD40 and it probably wouldn't take six weeks to get them fluent enough in Tex-Mex border lingo to fool the Border Patrol, even IF they got caught.

But he'd still have to do something about the smell. I've been around a few Arabs and plenty of Messcuns, and I'll have to admit that I'd rather ride in a pickup in August with the windows rolled up and no AC with 15 wetbacks than with one A-rab. :lol:
 
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