Border Patrol Program Improves Security on US-Mexican Border
By Greg Flakus
Del Rio, Texas
26 June 2008

Arrests of illegal aliens along the US/Mexico border have increased over the past year according to records of the US Department of Homeland Security. The records show a 73 percent increase in arrests and prosecutions over the past year. Officials attribute the increase to Operation Streamline, through which illegal entrants are charged with a misdemeanor crime, prosecuted and sent to jail. The program began in the US Border Patrol's Del Rio sector more than two years ago and, as VOA's Greg Flakus reports from Del Rio, it appears to have worked.

The rugged terrain on this section of the border was once a favored area for both human and drug smugglers. Before December 2005, Mexicans caught here by the Border Patrol were sent back across the border right away and citizens of other nations (OTMs) were released after being assigned a court date, for which very few of them ever showed up.

But under Operation Streamline any foreigner caught without documents here is arrested and faces, on average, a month-long jail sentence before being sent home. Border Patrol agent Mark Qualia says the increase in arrests and incarcerations has led to a significant drop in illegal border crossings.

"On Mexican apprehensions we are down 32 percent from when we initially started Operation Streamline and then 63 percent on the other than Mexicans, the OTMs," he noted.

Qualia says the same zero-tolerance approach is now being implemented elsewhere along the 3,000 kilometer border.

He says US citizens living along the border near Del Rio have expressed relief as the flow of immigrants and drug smugglers slows.

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