Thread: AZ: 2 agencies crack down on smugglers

2 agencies crack down on smugglers

by Dennis Wagner - Oct. 26, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

For the past seven weeks, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Bureau of Land Management rangers quietly carried out an anti-smuggling campaign in two national monuments that had become infested with drug runners and illegal immigrants.

In an interview Monday, directors of the two agencies said they've added manpower, erected barriers and torn down smuggler-lookout posts in an effort to secure the notorious Vekol Valley near Casa Grande.


Jim Kenna, Arizona director for the BLM, and Victor Manjarrez Jr., chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said the two agencies established unprecedented cooperation in an effort to combat border-related crime in the Sonoran Desert National Monument south of Interstate 8 and the Ironwood Forest National Monument west of Tucson.

They said the campaign, including saturation patrols and nighttime operations, was prompted by a series of violent events near Casa Grande during the past year.

In one incident, a deputy was wounded in a shootout with smugglers; in another, two Mexican nationals were killed by suspected bandits.

Kenna said the BLM added 10 rangers to the eight already patrolling the area. In addition, he said, the agency is erecting barriers to block vehicle routes created by smugglers, building radio-repeater stations to enhance communications and deploying cleanup crews to remove lookout posts built by smugglers. Those crews already have hauled out 11 tons of trash and debris.

Manjarrez said the Border Patrol added nearly 100 agents to the Casa Grande Station, which patrols the Vekol Valley and the national monuments.

"For the first time in the state, you're seeing a whole-of-government approach. . . . I see this as part of a cultural change," Manjarrez said.

Manjarrez and Kenna stressed that illegal activity overall is on the decline all along the Southwest border. Manjarrez said he's received so much manpower and technology that for the first time, he is able to clamp down on the entire Sonoran border at once. Illegal-immigrant arrests dropped nearly two-thirds in the Tucson Sector over the past decade.

Kenna said that this week, the BLM replaced controversial warning signs installed earlier this year along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend.

The old signs warned that the area was unsafe due to armed smugglers. New postings describe increased federal patrols and cleanup efforts.


Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/pina ... z13Tvgz9XJ

those crews already have hauled out 11 tons of trash and debris.

Dump it on Messico's side of the border to act as a further barricade!