Thread: Arizona border: Security differs in Yuma and Tucson regions

Arizona border: Security differs in Yuma and Tucson regions

Yuma Sector under control, feds say; can strategy work in Tucson Sector?

by Dennis Wagner - May. 18, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Along a bleak expanse of U.S. border in western Arizona, where the sun beats down mercilessly, Border Patrol agents nowadays spend a lot of time listening to wind blow across the sand dunes.

Once a thoroughfare for hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossers, the Yuma Sector now records barely 7,000 arrests each year.

The 126-mile stretch of landscape is the only southwestern border segment listed under "operational control" by the Department of Homeland Security.

That status, used to describe areas where officials are reasonably ensured of capturing most crossers, was gained in 2006 when the government launched a crackdown known as Operation Jump Start. National Guard troops swarmed the area, building multilayered fences and vehicle barriers along the entire Mexican line. The Border Patrol tripled its number of agents. Observation posts, equipped with giant spotlights, were established.

At the same time, the Justice Department imposed a new prosecution policy, dubbed Operation Streamline. Instead of merely rounding up illegal immigrants and dumping them back into Mexico, nearly every person arrested for unlawful entry was charged with a crime, convicted and imprisoned.

As word spread about the campaign, drug runners and human smugglers abandoned their routes in the Yuma area. The number of illegal immigrants apprehended in the desert plummeted from 138,460 in 2005 to 7,116 last year.

"It was chaos," said Rodolfo "Rudy" Karisch, acting chief agent of the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector. "Now, we've been able to manage it. . . . The border can be controlled if you apply the right resources."

Critics, including Sen. John McCain, want to know why President Barack Obama - who last week cited improved border security as he called for comprehensive immigration reform - hasn't applied the same resources to the Tucson Sector. Nearly half of all illegal-immigrant arrests along the border take place in the Tucson Sector, where narcotics seizures set a record last year.

Administration officials say even if they were to implement the same resources (which they have come close to doing) in the Tucson Sector, they would never achieve the same results because of the extreme geographic differences in the neighboring regions.

Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for Arizona and a former senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said anyone who believes identical strategies can work in the Tucson and Yuma regions does not understand border dynamics. The two regions are "apples and oranges" because of topography, he said, and because there are far more staging towns for smugglers on the Mexican side south of the Tucson Sector.

"It's like something worked real well in Des Moines, and someone is asking the police chief in New York City why he hasn't adopted the same program," Burke said.

Officials say they are continuing to hone their strategy for the Tucson Sector.

A brief history

In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton developed a step-by-step plan to restore the rule of law to America's Southwest, beginning in urban border zones.

Operation Gatekeeper, initiated in 1993 in the San Diego area, used a surge of agents and other measures to combat illegal entries. A year later, Operation Rio Grande achieved similar results in Texas. Similar efforts over the years suppressed smuggling and stemmed the flood of illegal immigrants in other areas.

But each time one border segment was controlled, the drug- and human-smuggling organizations moved their operations to another location. Experts use the analogy of a balloon being squeezed in many places at once. Arizona became the last major squeeze point.

By the mid-2000s, Yuma had emerged as a giant bulge. President George W. Bush sent in reinforcements under Operation Jump Start. Today, the sector is so serene, so dull, that a recent Los Angeles Times article told of agents dealing with a difficult new challenge: snoozing on the job.

Smuggling operations moved east, into the Tucson Sector, which extends 262 miles from Lukeville through Nogales and Douglas to New Mexico.

Last year, nearly half of all apprehensions made by the Border Patrol took place in that arena, a final piece in the enforcement puzzle, according to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin.

"We acknowledge that the issue is Arizona," he said. "And we've mounted the most active campaign to close that sector down."

Bersin added, however, that drug cartels and human-smuggling syndicates have become more desperate and violent. "They will make a stand here to try to preserve these smuggling routes. The death of Agent Brian Terry (in a December shootout) is witness to that fact."

Beefing up a sector

A helicopter rises above Tucson, quickly leaving cityscape behind for barren desert.

On board are Bersin and two other Department of Homeland Security officials most responsible for securing the border with Mexico: Mike Fisher, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, and Randy Hill, head of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector.

The administrators note that criminals who operated in Yuma for decades now run their smuggling operations across the rugged terrain below, competing for routes. Although tactics used in Operation Jump Start are being employed in the Tucson Sector, they say, this is a different environment: The region is tangled with mountain ranges - the Chiricahuas, Huachucas, Patagonias and Baboquivaris - that provide forest cover with few roads and limited radio access. Even at lower elevations, the desert here is often thick with foliage and marked by arroyos.

As the helicopter moves southwest, Hill points out old footpaths zigzagging through the desert. A decade ago, smugglers entered the United States through valleys, hiking only a day or so before meeting pickup vehicles along the nearest highway. Now, even in the Tucson Sector, enforcement is so intense they must trek several nights to avoid a gantlet of agents, surveillance gear and checkpoints.

"We've pretty much cleared the desert," Hill says.

Bersin says fences have been reinforced in the border towns. Soldiers were deployed last year. Border Patrol manpower has increased. Operation Streamline, the "zero tolerance" prosecution of undocumented immigrants, is being phased in. But escalation takes time and money.

"Nobody in Yuma thinks that the border is out of control now," Bersin says. "That is what we intend to accomplish here."

The chopper passes through jagged peaks on the Tohono O'odham Reservation. Fisher nods toward vantage points where cartel spotters can monitor Border Patrol operations, warning drug packers by radio or cellphone where to go and when to hide.

"They'll walk right along these foothills, and when they spot one of our guys, they go up into the mountains," he says.

The aircraft moves into a no man's land. There is no sign of human presence except more foot trails, an occasional Border Patrol truck and a vehicle barrier running along the edge of Mexico.

The pilot hovers near one of several new FOBs, forward operating bases, where agents take turns on seven-day rotations, working 12-hour shifts in the heart of smuggling country, far from paved roadways.

"The Marines have forward operating bases in Afghanistan," says a voice in the chopper's headsets. "We have them in Arizona. The purpose is to get them closer to the front."

Brutal countryside

George "Zach" Taylor, a former Border Patrol supervisor who has testified before congressional committees, said the Tucson Sector remains a major infiltration corridor because the countryside is brutal with limited access.

Taylor, a founding member of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, served 26 years with the agency, the last 14 in Nogales. In interviews and written testimony, he said the topography of Santa Cruz, Pima and Cochise counties provides a haven for smugglers, far different than anything in Yuma.

But he said environmental regulations within wilderness areas and wildlife refuges magnify the problem for border agents.

Taylor pointed to canyons west of Nogales as an example. Illegal border crossers enter the Pajarita Wilderness, where agents struggle with poor radio communications, inadequate roads and the threat of armed bandits. Federal restrictions make it impossible to simply bulldoze more coverage routes or build new radio towers, Taylor said. And if Border Patrol takes the time to seek permits, smugglers move on before work can be done.

Last week, Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., introduced legislation that would allow Customs and Border Protection agents unfettered access to federal lands on the southwestern border, voiding environmental protections there.

'Trends are right'

Aboard the CBP helicopter, Bersin talks about progress in the Tucson Sector: A decade ago, 616,000 undocumented immigrants were captured. Last year, even with far more manpower and technology, there were 212,000 apprehensions.

Despite the drop in arrests, border violence seems to have intensified. Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz was killed by suspected smugglers. Terry, the Border Patrol agent, died in a gunfight with bandits near Nogales.

Still, Bersin says, the numbers show illegal traffic is subsiding; smugglers are being forced into the wilds.

"It's not inconsistent to say the border is safer and more secure than it's ever been and to say there's more to be done," he adds.

As the helicopter lands at the Border Patrol station in Ajo, Bersin is asked when the government will gain "effective control" of the entire Arizona line.

He hesitates.

"I wouldn't tell you it will be a year from now or three years from now, but it could happen faster than you think," he says. "The trends are right."

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Sure secure.. Yet in one month sheriff Joe gets.
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-237900.html

Three hundred plus.. What a sham and we are not fooled.
What we see, hear, and live here is not secure! Far from it!
I don't know or care what damn sector, county or state illegal aliens
invade us from. It is bad and only getting worse!!

The Feds are learning from Obama...blame something for their failures. If it isn't enough manpower then its the logistics. Put enough troops there, arm them and give them orders to take out anything that moves over the border and you will see the numbers of illegals and drug runs drop. Keep the troops there and use it as a training post for Middle East operations. Do the arrest and dump method. Scare the poop out of them with a massive show of force and they will not come back. The Feds claim the drug runners are getting more violent...well to the marines and the army violence can be brought to a fast hault with a tank. Nothing says hault like when your looking down the barrel of a cannon.

Border security: Tucson vs. Yuma


Posted: May 23, 2011 9:23 PM PDT Updated: May 24, 2011 8:40 AM PDT


Reporter: Steve Nunez

YUMA, Ariz. (KGUN9-TV) There was a time, not long ago, when masses upon masses of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers crossed the border through Yuma. Agents would give chase but were outnumbered and out-foxed.

But in 6 short years, Yuma has turned things around. It's border is now the measuring stick for being under "operational control." Nine on your side wants to know, if this same strategy can work in the Tucson sector?

Just 6 years ago, illegal immigrants and drug smugglers orchestrated daily "bonsai runs" and drive thru's across the border into Yuma. But that was then.

Border Patrol Chief Rudy Karisch told KGUN9 News, Yuma is now under operational control. "This is lock down. This is my best definition of controlling the border right here," said Karisch.

Still, 9 on your side wanted to know what happens at night, when the real action starts in the cover of darkness. KGUN9 News cameras were there when agents chased down two illegal immigrants in less than 30 minutes.

Even Antonio admits it's tough getting across the border. "Now it's very hard," said Antonio. Steve Nunez asked Antonio if he'll cross again. Antonio responded, "Yes, my wife's over there and my son."

In part, politicians point to Yuma's 7,100 total arrests last year, as a measuring stick for defining a secured border. But as 9 on your side discovered, completing the border fence has played a key role.

In Yuma, some type of fencing stretches across all 126 miles, including enforcement zones with double and triple layered fencing. "You have time to respond because they still have to cross fence number two and fence number three and then the natural barriers," said Karisch.

He added, "And basically apprehend them here rather than allowing them to get into the neighborhoods."

Yuma's flat terrain, its canals and the Colorado River compliment its strategy, to allow more agents to patrol remote areas. Karisch said, "And we allow the traffic to funnel into to us."

Can the Tucson sector use its environment to its advantage in the same way Yuma does across all 262-miles? For that answer KGUN9 News asked Tucson Chief Randy Hill.

He told Steve Nunez the Tucson sector shares the same goals as Yuma which is "to apprehend every single person that crosses the border."

But Hill admitted, unlike Yuma, the area's rugged and mountainous terrain is problematic for agents to stop drug smugglers from sneaking across.

Nine on your side asked Hill if completing the entire fence would make a difference. He responded, "When you have a very rugged terrain area like we're talking about there's no need for vehicle barriers in those areas because a vehicle is not going to be able to use the area."

So instead, Hill said the Tucson sector's strategy will rely on increasing its man power from 3,800 to nearly 4,200 agents by next year. Plus, Hill said the sector is set to receive over 400-million dollars worth of new technology, including mobile cameras and sensors to help agents expand their patrols to areas only reached by helicopter right now.

But Hill admitted this strategy could take up to 3 years to accomplish. Meanwhile, he pointed to a drop in the number of apprehensions from 616,000in 2000 to 212,000 last year as a sign that progress is already being made.

"All of that is going to come to bare to significantly increase in my opinion border security here in Arizona," said Hill. But Hill would not commit to saying what, or when "operational control" will be achieved. "Operational control is going to be related to an individual's opinion," said Hill.

KGUN9 News asked Hill if he had a timeline for when control can be achieved. Hill could not.

Overall, while many Republican politicians point to Yuma as the model for border security, not far from its border fence, there's also a clear example of what most Democrats are calling for, a guest worker program. It has also lessened the lure for people to come across illegally and stay.

overall - while many republican politicians point to Yuma as the model for border security -

not far from its border fence - there's also a clear example of what most democrats are calling for: a guest worker program - that has also lessened the lure for people to come across illegally - and stay.

Tucson sector chief Randy Hill told KGUN9 News the new fencing along the Nogales and Douglas border areas will make it even harder for illegal immigrants to cross through urban areas. That fencing is expected to be done in July.

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