Border Patrol has seen a significant decrease in overall apprehensions

April 22, 2007 08:27 PM PDT

The work is ongoing at the Falfurrias immigration and security checkpoint. Passenger vehicles and tractor-trailers are inspected by Border Patrol agents, looking for human smuggling or illegal drugs.

Oscar Saldana, spokesperson for Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector tells Action 4 News it's not only work at the checkpoint by the agents. "They are also performing rescues and apprehensions of undocumented immigrants out in the ranch land."

Within an hour from arrival, Action 4 News cameras captured border patrol units, one after another, bringing in a group of 35 undocumented immigrants who tried to walk around the checkpoint. They were abandoned by the smuggler and were lost for days in the Brooks County ranches.

"Obviously for some Mexicans there is an option of voluntary return if they don't come back with anything as far as any past criminal history or any past order of formal removal or deportation" said Saldana.

Through the second quarter of the 2007 fiscal year, the Rio Grande Valley Sector has seen a 42-percent decrease in overall apprehensions. That's 34,000 to 59,000 arrests in 2006.

About 10-thousand O.T.M.'s or Other-Than-Mexicans were detained. That's a 65% decrease compared to 30,000 apprehensions in the 2006 fiscal year.

According to Border Patrol officials, the decrease on overall apprehensions are due to the continued vigilance by front-line agents on the border, a result of their border enforcement strategy.

Federal agents are also concerned about those that pose a national threat. 18 members of the violent Mara-Salvatrucha gang were arrested and processed for removal.

Agents suspected that a Salvadorian captured in the group of 35 undocumented immigrants was a gang member, but more interviewing was necessary to confirm that.

"It's a gang that obviously is of very importance to us because when we apprehend one of these subjects, we obviously interview them and he or she might lead us to more valuable information" said Oscar Saldana.

Homeland Security officials will meet next week with riverfront landowners in Roma, Texas. They want to partner with them and discuss about installing a 5-mile border fence in their properties around the Roma Port of Entry. The fence could be a mixture of technology, infrastructure and more personnel.

The intention is to stop illegal crossings of undocumented immigrants that are crossed on rafts into the United States in that area.

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