Arizona lags in share of new agents on border

Arizona lags in share of new agents on border
by Sean Holstege - Dec. 18, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

The Border Patrol has met its goal of hiring 6,000 new agents in two years, but Arizona, which has the busiest stretch of border, saw the smallest percentage increase.

Along the Southwestern border, 45 percent more agents now patrol than did two years ago. But along Arizona's border, where nearly half of all illegal immigrants traveling from Mexico were arrested last year, the Border Patrol bolstered its forces by 23 percent.

The Laredo, Texas, area saw the biggest boost with 83 percent more agents. Across the border, Nuevo Laredo has deteriorated into chaos during the past two years as Mexico's drug wars have intensified.

In sheer numbers, Texas' Border Patrol areas gained about 3,100 agents, to about 8,400 agents. Arizona gained nearly 800 agents, to about 4,100, and California gained about 1,000 agents, to about 3,400.

The Border Patrol said the combination of terrain, unmanned surveillance aircraft and new fencing on half the Arizona border justified adding fewer new agents.

"We allocate resources based on where we see the need, where the traffic is after all the intelligence is developed," said Mario Escalante, a Tucson Sector spokesman. "As the trends change, we change with it. As we control an area, we try to expand it."


Fencing goal missed

The Border Patrol announced that it had met its congressionally mandated 18,000-agent target Wednesday, a week after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged his agency has fallen 170 miles short of its goal to fence off 670 miles of Mexico's border by the new year.

His nominated successor, Gov. Janet Napolitano, said in a KJZZ (91.5) interview Wednesday that she wants to redeploy National Guard units to the border. Two years ago, she called for a troop deployment to the border until the federal government met its hiring and fence targets. Temporary deployment ended on schedule in July before the goals were met.

Napolitano was traveling Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

No formal proposals have been made to continue hiring border agents, and as President-elect Barack Obama's team prepares to take the reins, it's still unclear how closely it will continue Chertoff's plans to add more fencing and use technology such as cameras and surveillance aircraft to secure the border.

"We still do need more agents," said Jason Ciliberti, a Border Patrol spokesman. "More resources never hurt anybody."

Ciliberti said the government will know that it has enough agents when the entire 1,950-mile border resembles what is happening near Yuma.

There, arrests have fallen 93 percent in two years, as 180 agents were added and double fencing exists.

In private, Yuma agents sometimes mutter about how boring their jobs have become.

Life in the Tucson Sector is anything but. That is where nearly half the arrests and smuggled marijuana is seized on the border. The sector also has seen sharp increases in attacks on agents. Arrests of illegal immigrants dropped 19 percent in the past two years in the Tucson Sector.

Borderwide, arrests dropped 34 percent.


Experience lacking

It remains to be seen how effective the Border Patrol will be at keeping the new agents.

Congressional oversight committees have worried about the early washout rate, while veterans say many of the new arrivals are younger and less experienced than when the veterans joined.

Escalante, who has served as a training officer, said training compensates for life experiences and background. Most of the applicants came from border states, so homesickness and an adjustment to the harsh border environment should matter less.

Military veterans accounted for nearly a quarter of the new agents, but otherwise, the demographics haven't changed much.

Slightly more than half of Border Patrol agents are Hispanic, while 5 percent are women and 1 percent are Black, the same as in 2006.

www.azcentral.com

"The Border Patrol said the combination of terrain, unmanned surveillance aircraft and new fencing on half the Arizona border justified adding fewer new agents".
What kind of convoluted pretzel logic is that????? The object is to have as many manpower assets readily available to deal with a situation in a remote area that won't be responded to in a timely manner if your manpower assets are located miles away. Technology (a force multiplier but always subject to failure in the harsh desert environment) and other infrastructure as fencing is meant to complement manpower resources, not supplant it, especially in a critical environment as border security which is national security. This should prove beyond a doubt this government has absolutely no intention of securing the borders.
Why does it not surprise me that the state with the least manpower assets on the joke of a wide open border will be sending the next DHS head cheese to DC? More then coincidental???? I think not.......... I would love to be the DHS. However I probably wouldn't last more then a week as I would raise the b.s. flag on my first day in office because unlike Napolitano, I do care about our country, it's borders, sovereignty, laws and way of life. Ladies and gentlemen we are in for one hell of a rough ride.......