Great things are happening?
Here is a link to an organized press conference masking as a story in the
Arizona Republic.
More border agents, crackdown on unlawful employers pledged
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0316hutchinson16.html - [Link expired]
This is just another feel-good election year distribution of smoke,
mirrors and misdirection. It is an attempt to take attention away from
the recent give-aways to President Fox of Mexico.
In this article Asa Hutchinson of Homeland Security fame and his
spokeswoman say that 260 agents will be added to the Tucson sector to
bring the total to nearly 2,000, and that they will add four helicopters
and several aircraft. They go on to "not rule out" the "possibility" that
they "might" deploy unmanned drones.
In the press releases two weeks ago they were going to add 200 agents to
bring the total to above 2,000. The helicopters that they have now sit
parked and wait for ground forces to find crossers and during the summer
are used for "rescues", not patrolling.
In the article they refer to the 350 miles of border. Do the math. That
is an additional agent for every 1.3 miles of border. Reduce that by
three shifts seven days per week and it comes to one new on-duty agent for
every 5.7 miles of unfenced border if no one is sick or on vacation. Big
deal.
Tell me they are sending 2,000 or 4,000 or 6,000 personnel to the border
and I might start getting excited about someone doing something.
For a number of years now the Border Patrol's tactics, dictated from the
very top, has been what the Army would call Rear Area Security as opposed
to Forward Deployment. In other words catch them after they cross as
opposed to keeping them from crossing. Why is that, you might ask?
Because of concessions to the President of Mexico. If people were
prevented from crossing, Mexico would fill up with illegal aliens from
other countries and Mexico would have to deal with them.
Asa Hutchinson, and company, are the ones who have decided that
individuals crossing the Mexican border with a visa card will not have to
be finger printed, to expedite crossing, as long as they stay close to the
border. More than forty 15-passenger vans per day leave Douglas, AZ,
bound for Phoenix, AZ. Every day. I counted them. They carry people on
the 300 mile trip using the "stay close to the border" visa cards.
Everyday hundreds of cars with Mexico license plates can been seen on I-10
heading north from Tucson.
Asa Hutchinson, and company, are the ones that tell me that the many extra
hours that I, a U.S. citizen, spend when traveling by air within the
United States are necessary for national security. But an extra 30
minutes to an hour to cross the border by citizens of Mexico is too great
an inconvenience and too great a price to pay for the same security.
Potentially these unchecked legal crossers can comit crimes in the U.S.
and travel back and forth across the border without ever being detected.
Asa Hutchinson, and company, are the ones who have issued the policy that
no one in Homeland Security to the lowest levels are allowed to reveal any
statistics of how many and the source of Other Than Mexican (OTM) illegal
crossers. Not even a total for the year.
Asa Hutchinson, and company, are the ones who have issued a recent policy
that no one in the border protection entities are allowed to make any
comments concerning the numbers of individuals caught, or "got aways".
The numbers would look bad for the proposed amnesty programs.
Today there are two articles concerning the capture of either 579 or 580
pounds of cocaine. The article listing 579 pounds has a street value of
$4.2 million. The article listing 580 pounds has a street value of $18.5
million. That extra pound must be really really concentrated.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=031604a2_filler - [Link expired]
Border Patrol seize $4.2 million of cocaine [login required]
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0316tuc-cocaineseizure-ON.html - [link expired]
What is more telling in these two articles is that; first the truck drove
across the border, secondly it was stopped well within the interior of the
U.S. and finally it would not have been stopped if someone had not given
authorities a tip. If the border were secure with forward deployed
personnel the truck should not have made it across the border.
There are no football games for another five or six months. Blimps are
temporarily mothballed. Just the technology they have now can record a
coin toss at 800 feet. Why not contract them to patrol the border using
the latest day/night cameras and direct ground forces? Instant security
upgrade.
Don't be fooled. Nothing significantly is changing on the border except
the increase in the number of individuals crossing. I think the Haitians
are due this week.
Tim Richardson
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