Thread: Trump team surveying border

Transition team instructed Border Patrol to suggest locations for border wall

BERENICE GARCIA | STAFF WRITER 2 hrs ago



RIO GRANDE CITY — Just a few weeks before taking office, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has already taken steps toward fulfilling his campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

“My understanding is that the sectors have been asked by headquarters at the request of the transition team, ‘Tell us where you think we ought to have a wall,’” Cuellar said.

“I can tell you about the one in Laredo; they basically said no wall,” Cuellar said referring to the Laredo sector’s response. “But, nevertheless, they said ‘No, that’s not good enough, come back and tell us where we ought to put fence, wall, structure, whatever you want to call it.’”

Cuellar’s comments came during a tour of an aerostat, a balloon or blimp equipped with infrared, high-resolution cameras that are used for surveillance along the border.

Some believe that the aerostats could be used to create a virtual wall along the border, lessening the need to build physical barriers.

The aerostats were used previously by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, but five are deployed in the Rio Grande Valley sector and another one in Laredo.

Two of the aerostats, the Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment, are owned by Customs and Border Protection. However, the Persistent Ground Surveillance System aerostats and the Persistent Threat Detection System aerostats are leased from the Department of Defense.

The can fly up to 1,000 feet, 3,000 feet and 5,000 feet above ground, respectively.

Cuellar said the information captured by the devices is also used by Mexican officials.

The cost of operating and maintaining each aerostat ranges from $308,000 to $466,000 per month, Cuellar said during the tour which was attended by officials from the Border Patrol and CBP.

“What we’re trying to do in Congress in the appropriations, myself, is to have money in the budget to make it permanent where they can use the operations for the aerostats and for the tower cameras,” he said, estimating they would need about 100 aerostats to cover the entire border.

Cuellar said he believed a virtual wall would be enough to secure the border and more cost-effective.

One mile of technology would cost about $1 million dollars while one mile of fencing, with contraction and maintenance, would cost $6.5 million, Cuellar said, citing testimony he received by the Department of Homeland Security.

Along with the aerostats, Cuellar said the use of towers, with cameras with a five-mile range of visibility in either direction, and ground sensors would aid the Border Patrol in securing the border.

He also suggested the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, which have begun to be used in the San Angelo area earlier this year.

Cuellar, once again, expressed disappointment that the $750 million he helped appropriate for border security has not been used.

“Kay Granger and I added $750 million to help the northern triangle,” he said referring to the Texas congressman who also sits on the House Appropriations Committee. “That was about a year ago, and as of maybe at least two weeks, they had only used $23 million out of the $750 million while we’re still having a large number of unaccompanied kids that are still coming in at this particular time.”

Cuellar hoped the funds would be used to provide assistance to Central America but also reiterated the need to secure the border.

“There’s some of us that believe that we can’t just play defense on the one yard line where we spend over $18 billion a year on border security,” he said.

“I’m one of those that believes we ought to look at the right mixture of personnel, technology to provide the security to our border.”

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local...b389495fd.html

Okay, lets do some real math.

We have 2,000 miles of Southern Border. How many border guards would it take to secure that border? Well, I did a little study several years ago and it looks like 40,000 border guards. 20 per mile, on average, with 6 agents per 8 hour shift, with 2 floaters to fill in for vacations, sick leave and holidays. Some areas might need more, some less, but use the 20 per mile for averages. If you pay them average manufacturing wage of $20 an hour, that's $40,000 a year plus benefits. Add 25% for good benefits and that's $50,000 a year total package. $50,000 a year x 40,000 = $2 billion a year. Add another $1 billion a year for equipment, telephones, night goggles, cameras, ipads, first aid, vehicles, weapons, fuel, camping gear where required, horses, cuff links or straps,food, water, some helicopters from national guard, etc., etc. and you can secure the southern border with personnel for $3 billion a year. Add armed Park Rangers to the US Department of Interior in border areas to better patrol federal land and national parks. Add another 1/2 billion. Create an automatic hearing process with Federal Magistrates to issue deportation orders basically on the spot for anyone captured and haul 'em out of here in less than 24 hours. Increase the number of ICE agents as they're already planning and the border is secured.

Of courses, BUILD THE WALL, anywhere and everywhere it is practical and reasonable to do. A beautiful wall, with landscaping, so anyone who damages that wall or threatens that wall or damages the landscaping will be charged with criminal trespass and larceny vandalism automatically. We know how to do this, we do it all the time on our highway projects for sound barriers. Philadelphia has one of the most beautiful walls ever on its Blue Route. Gorgeous!! And I'm sure there all over California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas so you know exactly what I'm talking about. The environmentalists are responsible for these beautiful walls. Thank you!! So coordinate this wall project with the Department of Transportation, because they know how to do it, install them on our border, higher, thicker, concrete, etc. to adjust for the added purpose of keeping trespassers and criminals out, put an end to illegal immigration once and for all in the United States.

Keep track of all the countries whose people came here, attach a fine and deduct any unpaid fines and damages from US aid to that country. Very simple.

And if we're spending $18 billion a year now on border insecurity, I think we'll be billions of money ahead with this plan to actually secure the border.

I don't care how beautiful the wall is. What I care about is functionality. Just build the darn thing!

I wall that actually works will be a force multiplier.

Again, I've never put much faith in the idea of a wall. I'm trying to think of what kind of wall would actually be a deterrent. How high, how deep into the ground?

Just me, but a wall will work only if it is backed by beefed up personnel, aerial surveillance, sensors, etc. The personnel should be given the mandate to stop the invaders.

Also, it is going to have to be backed by enforcing the interior laws.
We have laws that, if enforced, not only on a national level, but state, county and city, that would make it uncomfortable for illegals and their employers.

A wall is only a small part of what is needed and what will work - that's just me.

Originally Posted by nntrixie

....

Also, it is going to have to be backed by enforcing the interior laws.
We have laws that, if enforced, not only on a national level, but state, county and city, that would make it uncomfortable for illegals and their employers.

A wall is only a small part of what is needed and what will work - that's just me.

It's not just you. Without enforcing against the presence of illegal immigrants in the interior, a Wall will be useless. Our Chinese illegal immigrants do not need to scale walls. Recall the news report about a Filipino Catholic priest calling on Philippine illegals to return before being deported. I was amazed that we had illegals from the Philippines and wondered how they got here. The reply was pretty simple: a plane ride. Our borders, and certainly not just our southern borders, are not the only porous part allowing illegal immigration. We have other points of entry that are porous as well.

In the northwest, it's Asians.

We visited our son there for a couple of months - Seattle area.

They lived in an area where you had to cross a bridge that spanned a sort of backwater from the ocean. It was an oyster bed.

Every time we passed, we would see one or two Asian men with white buckets picking up oysters (we presumed). We didn't know the entire thing belonged to the oyster company and thought they were just picking up oysters as you can along some of the beaches.

One day we bought some fish and chips and were going to sit on the beach to eat. The ocean side was full of people, kids, etc., so we decided to go to the 'mud side'.

A young man, came up and told us we would have to leave as that belong to the oyster company. We were simply sitting on an old tree eating. He was nice, Southern lad, and we talked a little. I told him we saw men picking up oysters all the time.

He said, 'That's just some of them illegal-type aliens and there's nothing we can do about them. He said the police would do nothing..

So we couldn't even sit there to eat, but illegals could steal buckets of oysters. I don't know about the price of oysters, but I'm thinking they were making some money there.

It's our Period of Ironies and Opposites, nntrixie, where our country is upside down, inside out. Trump will fix it. Citizens can sit on the treat and eat their oysters and illegal aliens will be out here empty-handed.

21 JUN 2013 | COMMENTARY

What is the Real Cost of an Additional 20,000 Border Patrol Agents?

By: Maureen Meyer, Senior Associate for Mexico and Central America and Adam Isacson, Senior Associate for Regional Security

"This proposal is a realistic and measured approach that will finally solve one of the most difficult problems facing our broken immigration system."
— Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nevada), June 21, 2013

Please click here to visit the Border Fact Check Blog

The Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate for the immigration bill calculates that adding 3,500 Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents as proposed in the current version of the legislation would exceed $600 million annually – that’s around $171,400 per agent per year. Assuming Border Patrol agents cost about the same as all CBP officers, increasing the number of agents by 20,000, as is proposed in the Corker-Hoeven amendment, would cost over $3.4 billion a year. Over the next decade, this increase would amount to over $34 billion. This yearly cost for additional agents is close to the Border Patrol’s current annual budget and far exceeds the $6 billion the CBO calculated for the 10-year cost of a much smaller staff increase.

In a time of sequester, where $85 billion in automatic budget cuts are dramatically reducing afterschool programs, food pantries, and meal programs for the sick and elderly; eliminating thousands of jobs for teachers and emergency response personnel; and even limiting the Border Patrol’s capacity to deploy agents for road patrols, we question whether such a dramatic increase in border security spending, with questionable endgame results, is a good use of the U.S. budget.

"This is border security on steroids."
— Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), remarking on an amendment to immigration reform legislation (S. 744) that he and Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota) have introduced in the U.S. Senate.

The Corker amendment would roughly double the size of U.S. Border Patrol to about 40,000 members. Is that a wise use of funds?

The Facts:

Border Patrol has already doubled in size [PDF] since 2005, and quintupled in size since 2003. There were 9,891 agents stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2005; by the end of 2012 there were 18,516.
Meanwhile, border crossings are way down. In 2000, Border Patrol agents apprehended [PDF] 1,643,679 people near the U.S.-Mexico border. By last year, that number had dropped to 356,873.
As the agency grew and border-crossers dropped, the number of “apprehensions per agent” has fallen to historic lows. In 2000 each Border Patrol agent at the U.S.-Mexico border apprehended an average of 192 border-crossers. By 2012 the average was 19 apprehensions per agent.

Given this remarkable drop, is not clear how much more a further doubling of Border Patrol would achieve. Dropping the ratio to 10 apprehensions per agent per year would be a small gain for such a great expense.

That expense would be immense. If we very conservatively estimate the cost of maintaining a Border Patrol officer (salary, benefits, training, vehicles, fuel, uniforms, etc.) at US $100,000 per year, then 20,000 new agents would cost the U.S. Treasury US $2 billion per year. (The agency’s current budget [PDF] is about US $3.5 billion.)

An additional US $2 billion per year is far more money than the current Senate immigration reform bill contemplates spending. S.744 foresees up to US $6.5 billion total, to be spent over five-plus years, in new border security funds.

Given these apprehension and staffing trends, doubling Border Patrol does not appear to be the most efficient use of an additional US $2 billion per year.

“For people who are concerned about border security, once they see what’s in this bill, it’s almost overkill,” Sen. Corker said on June 20. We agree with that, except for the “almost.”

https://www.wola.org/analysis/what-i...patrol-agents/

Originally Posted by pkskyali

It's not just you. Without enforcing against the presence of illegal immigrants in the interior, a Wall will be useless. Our Chinese illegal immigrants do not need to scale walls. Recall the news report about a Filipino Catholic priest calling on Philippine illegals to return before being deported. I was amazed that we had illegals from the Philippines and wondered how they got here. The reply was pretty simple: a plane ride. Our borders, and certainly not just our southern borders, are not the only porous part allowing illegal immigration. We have other points of entry that are porous as well.

45% of illegal aliens didn't enter illegally. They entered legally on visas, tourist visas, work visas, student visas, and never left. That's how most of the Filipinos and Asians got here. They came here legally and never left. That's why we need a 10 to 20 year Moratorium on All Immigration and a tourist and business visa tracking system.

The US State Department has lost $6 billion. The US Department of Defense can't find $128 billion. At the time of 9/11, the US Navy Retirement Fund had lost $2 trillion.

I don't care how much it costs to get 40,000 border patrol agents on the southern border. That's how many we need, that's how many we should want, and that's what Congress should do. After the wall is built, we may not need that many and they can be re-assigned to other jobs in government or laid-off with a severance and with a great economy and good jobs back in our country, go work in business and industry.

Trump will figure this all out and submit a great plan. Congress stumbling around on its own is a waste of time and information at this point.