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Illegal Immigration Becoming A Growing Problem In Greenwood



The ArkLaTex may be hundreds of miles from the mexican border, but it seems illegal immigration is an issue that's at our doorstep. And police in at least one local town are frustrated.

Greenwood is no border town, yet police say it is a doorway of sorts that suspected illegal immigrants are using all the time to gain access to other parts of the country. And they say there isn't much they can do to stop it.

What looks like an ordinary traffic stop is often anything but routine for Greenwood police. They say a man they stopped earlier this week is one of a growing number of suspected smugglers making their way through town. They are smugglers with human cargo. In this case, ten suspected undocumented immigrants. Police say vans like the one they stopped this week travel through Greenwood almost daily...using the highways to make secret journeys from Houston to the East coast. And even though officers are able to intervene, they say they often have to let them go because they can't get any help from federal immigration agents. Chief J. D. Dunn says, T hey will advise at that time what their resources are. If they're able to do anything with them. They're in the same situation that we're in. They have limited resources and determined by what they can provide for us at that time determines what we have to do." G reenwood police say all of this takes away from the limited resources they have. Instead of patrolling their streets, they say they end up spending a lot of time working these cases that lead to a dead end.