Thread: Fewer illegal border crossings mean fewer Goldwater Range in

Fewer illegal border crossings mean fewer Goldwater Range interruptions
By Arthur H. Rotstein
The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.06.2009

A dwindling number of illegal border crossings in Southwestern Arizona is translating into fewer interrupted missions for Marine pilots who have to abort or alter practice bombing runs when migrants enter their training range.
Illegal immigrants hiking through the desert have long posed intermittent problems for military air operations on the 2,700-square-mile Barry M. Goldwater Range, whose boundaries butt up against the U.S.-Mexico border in some areas.
Airborne Marine pilots can't drop practice ordnance, their AV-8B Harrier jets are diverted to other target areas or they must land without completing their missions when people turn up unexpectedly on the range. Those awaiting takeoff may have their missions delayed or scratched.
But the impact of illegal immigrants has virtually disappeared on the westernmost part of the range used by the Marines. "It's borderline nonexistent," said Ron Pearce, the Marine Corps' range management officer. "I would say there have been zero flights canceled this year," with only slight delays.
The isolated range has been a crossing point for years for illegal immigrants seeking to avoid more heavily patrolled stretches of the Arizona-Mexico border. There have been no reported incidents on the Goldwater Range of immigrants being struck by ordnance.
Border Patrol apprehension statistics don't isolate just the Goldwater Range, but figures for areas that encompass it show apprehensions have continued to drop there. Federal authorities attribute that in part to more stringent enforcement, fences and other barriers erected in Southwestern Arizona in recent years.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tougher immigration enforcement, said ramped-up interior enforcement and the abysmal job market are major reasons for the drop-off.
"But certainly these are promising trends," Stein said. "Surely this facility was set up to provide training for military personnel, not a highway for illegal aliens."
Stein said the military training interruptions and efforts to track down illegal immigrants have been "a huge drain on taxpayer resources. … It's overall a very promising development, the fact that it's trending down."
The Marines credit the declining incursions on their part of the range to the military's installation of ground-based radar and to 37 miles of border fencing and vehicle barriers put up by the Border Patrol.
The situation was much different only a few years ago. Pete Loughlin, the Marines' mission assurance director, said trespassing began to become an issue in 2003 and 2004.
But the Marine Corps didn't start tracking the effects on training until April 2005. During the following six months, 166 two-plane training flights were affected, or 3.8 percent of a total of 8,739 individual flights flown.
Pilots were diverted to a different section of the range, put into a holding pattern until the range was cleared or their training was canceled, Loughlin said. Range closures averaged 30 minutes.
The Marine Corps responded by installing the radar system. Posted signs weren't enough to keep people out of active target areas, Pearce said.
The Marines also established a range operations center that helped them track where missions were being flown, so the entire bombing range didn't have to be shut down while Border Patrol agents were conducting a search.
"By the end of fiscal 2007, we had solved our problem. . . . We stopped reporting, because our particular challenge was solved," Loughlin said.
The same isn't true for the Air Force, which uses 1,600 square miles on the eastern side of the same range to train pilots flying F-16s out of Luke Air Force Base in Glendale and A-10s out of Davis-Monthan Air Force in Tucson.
Figures show migrants affected more sorties for more hours last fiscal year on the Air Force side of the range than earlier. But the increase hasn't been significant, said Kevin O'Berry, the Air Force's intergovernmental liaison for the Goldwater Range.
"Even though the numbers show an increase, in the big scheme of things it's just a fairly steady state of disruptions," he said.
Search-and-rescue efforts often take many hours, resulting in lengthy shutdowns, but they're statistically insignificant, he said. "(They) have less of an impact than weather. And we have great weather."

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/crime/295952

Why not convert a three mile wide swatch of our side of the Mexican border into one big 24/7 ordinance practice range from San Diego to Brownsville? A place where the birds don't sing in other words.