If the federal government took border security seriously it wouldn’t cost nearly as much as it does.
And where is the fun in that for a bureaucrat?
The sweeping immigration bill passed by the Senate in July attempts to solve the problem with a $46 billion “border surge” that is mostly spent on adding 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, and $3 billion in new monitoring technology, including sensors, radars, drones and helicopters.
That surge won over Senate Republicans who pushed for a secure border before they could agree to grant a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s undocumented immigrants, a provision that Democrats have insisted on.
But of the 17 sheriffs interviewed by USA TODAY, whose jurisdictions cover most of the U.S.-Mexico border, only one said they felt all those new agents were needed. The rest said they feel Border Patrol simply needs a new strategy and new technology.
“They’re tripping over themselves now,” Hudspeth County, Texas, Sheriff Arvin West said of the current 18,500 Border Patrol agents working the Southwest border.
The problem, West says, is that Border Patrol agents are no longer on the border, but working many miles inland. West has spent 30 years in the western Texas county where most of the border fence consists of posts strung with a few strands of barbed wire. It’s dangerous work to patrol the wild, rugged terrain in the middle of the night.
He, like all other sheriffs interviewed, respect the Border Patrol agents who risk their lives to keep the border safe and secure.
“But put them on the damned border,” he said. “In some places here, they are 60, 70 miles away. It’s going to take some (courage) to go down there. When you first get down there … you’re going to (tick) the drug dealers off. But once they understand that you held the line, they’re going to look for weaker spots further down the line.”
From his years of experience, Sheriff Clint McDonald in Terrell County, Texas, knows that there are 38 points in his county where people from Mexico can cross the Rio Grande. Yet Border Patrol does not go there.
“I guess I’m stupid, but I would think if you put people at those 38 crossings, people wouldn’t come across,” he said.
But in many areas along the border, federal Border Patrol agents spend most of their time patrolling roads and highways farther inland. Typically, drivers on Interstate 8 in California, I-19 in Arizona and I-10 in Texas see Border Patrol at highway checkpoints where agents wave most cars through, but stop suspicious-looking vehicles for additional screening.
It isn’t the agent’s fault. They get told where and how to patrol. To shut the door at the border what we need is not just more agents and more funding. We need real and willing leadership to go along with them.
So basically, we’re screwed.
