Thread: Illegal Immigration Surge in Texas Spurs Border Patrol Shift

by Bob Price 24 May 2014, 6:03 AM PDT
breitbart



At a hearing of Texas lawmakers held in Austin, Texas in April, Department of Public Safety (DPS) Director Steve McCraw said there is a “dramatic increase” in illegal immigration moving into South Texas. The increase is so massive, the U.S. Border Patrol is beginning to move more Border Patrol agents from other areas into Texas.

The number of illegal aliens being arrested per day in the Rio Grande Sector of South Texas, according to an Associated Press (AP) report dated May 23rd, is averaging 1,100 per day. This number is from the May 11-17 reporting period. That is roughly the same number of U.S. citizens that Governor Rick Perry claims are also moving to Texas on a daily basis. The 1,100 per day of illegal immigration are just the ones being arrested.

For the past year, the Border Patrol has been attempting to meet the surge in illegal immigration by beefing up resources in Texas. The AP report states that most new Border Patrol Academy graduates are being assigned to Texas. Additionally, 115 agents from other Texas sectors and from Arizona and California are also being temporarily deployed to the Rio Grande Sector in Texas.

The Border Patrol is also moving technology assets to Texas. Drones equipped with high-powered cameras and blimp-like aerostats, tethered to busy positions along border crossing areas are also being re-deployed to Texas.

Since the beginning of this fiscal year in October, 2013, 148,000 arrests have been made in the Rio Grande Sector. The Tucson Sector in Arizona, formerly the illegal immigration hotspot, reported about 63,000 arrests during the same time period. The nearly eight-month total for the Rio Grande Sector is nearly the same as last year’s total for the entire twelve months.

"I don't think we have anywhere near the resources that we would require to even make a dent in what we've got going on here," Agent Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent in McAllen and local vice president of the agents' union, told the AP. "I think it's common knowledge that we don't have the resources, that's why they're coming in droves like they are. They're exploiting a weakness that they've found and quite frankly they're doing a good job of it."

This week a group of state Agriculture Commissioners from across the nation came to South Texas to see first-hand, the impact of this illegal immigration surge. Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner John McMillion told the AP in a report dated May 22nd, that he came to Texas with a strong belief that the border could be secured. “It’s such an overwhelming thing that I’m not sure we can totally secure the border, but a viable guest worker program would help with the whole situation,” McMillan said.

The Ag Commissioners were invited by Texas’ Ag Commissioner Todd Staples who has made Border Security a key component of this duties in this office. He said, after the most recent border tour, that a reformed guest worker program would substantially enhance border security “because then our law enforcement would have so fewer people to have to intercept.”

Deputy Sector Chief Raul Ortiz said his sector plans to increase manpower even more. "We do plan to bring on additional agents," Ortiz said. "Our plan is to certainly increase the staffing commensurate with the threat level down here."

One difference between the high number of arrests in the Tucson Sector and the Rio Grande Sector is the nationality of those being arrested. In the Tucson Sector, the overwhelming majority came from Mexico. In the Rio Grande Sector, Mexico finishes forth, following Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Breitbart Texas has reported extensively about the increase in numbers along the Texas/Mexico border. Most recently, Kristin Tate reported on May 18th that Lackland Air Force Base, near San Antonio, is preparing to convert dormitory facilities at the Air Force’s largest training facility to temporary housing for about 1,000 illegal immigrant minors who are traveling or being smuggled into the United States without parents or guardians. This writer also wrote on May 17th about the Secretary of Homeland Security declaring a “Level 4 Alert” for the Texas/Mexico border.

Widespread gang and cartel violence along with the lack of economic opportunity in Mexico and Central America are leading causes of the illegal immigration migration through South Texas into the United States, according to the AP report listed above.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-T...r-Patrol-Shift

Illegal Immigration In Texas Sees Increase As Border Patrol Tries To Catch Up, Report Says

Published May 25, 2014
Fox News Latino


MISSION, TX - APRIL 11: U.S. Office of Air and Marine pilot Jake Dreher searches for suspected drug smugglers while on a ground mission along the Rio Grande River on April 11, 2013 in Mission, Texas. A smuggling mission was broken up by U.S. Border Patrol agents with helicopter support from the Office of Air and Marine. In addition to heavy drug smuggling in the area, Border Patrol agents say they have also seen an additional surge in immigrant traffic in Texas' Rio Grande Valley sector since immigration reform negotiations began this year in Washington D.C. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) (2013 Getty Images)

McALLEN, Texas (AP) – A shift by immigrant smugglers to target the tough-to-defend U.S.-Mexico border in southernmost Texas has accelerated this year as the Border Patrol scrambles to shift its resources from states farther west, according to an internal agency report obtained by The Associated Press.

From Oct. 1 through May 17, agents in the southernmost tip of Texas made more than 148,000 arrests, on pace to match last year's total in less than eight months, according to the intelligence report. That compares with nearly 63,000 arrests in the Tucson, Arizona, sector, which it surpassed for the first time just last year. The Rio Grande Valley sector averaged nearly 1,100 arrests per day from May 11-17, according to the document.

What these numbers look like on the ground is a near-constant flow of people across the Rio Grande. The arrests do not represent the full level of traffic, only those who are caught, but the report's hourly breakdowns showed the arrests never stopped. Heat maps illustrating concentrations of arrests glowed bright red along miles of the Rio Grande south of McAllen.

"I don't think we have anywhere near the resources that we would require to even make a dent in what we've got going on here," said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent in McAllen and local vice president of the agents' union. "I think it's common knowledge that we don't have the resources, that's why they're coming in droves like they are. They're exploiting a weakness that they've found and quite frankly they're doing a good job of it."

When a delegation of state agriculture commissioners from around the country visited the McAllen Border Patrol station Wednesday, they were told about 1,400 arrests were made the night before. They saw more than 1,000 immigrants, many mothers with infants or solo teenagers, being held in spaces intended to accommodate only a fraction of that.

In a statement Friday, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha Catron addressed the government's efforts to deal with unaccompanied children, who have contributed to the crowded conditions at Border Patrol stations and overwhelmed available shelter space. Last week, the government announced it would once again temporarily house as many as 1,000 of the children at a San Antonio Air Force base. DHS has designated someone to coordinate efforts, sent additional senior staff to the region and expanded awareness campaigns in the immigrants' home countries.

Last month, at the McAllen station to welcome a new group of temporarily assigned agents, the sector's Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz said he and the new chief were talking a lot about staff levels.

"We do plan to bring on additional agents," Ortiz said. "Our plan is to certainly increase the staffing commensurate with the threat level down here."

The Border Patrol has been trying to beef up its resources in the area for more than a year. Most new academy graduates come straight to Texas, and 115 agents from sectors elsewhere in Texas as well as Arizona and California have been temporarily detailed here. At the end of the last fiscal year, the Tucson sector had 1,049 more agents than the Rio Grande Valley.

The difference is not only in agents. Drones hum above the South Texas border with high-powered cameras, and a growing fleet of blimp-like aerostats are tethered at busy crossing spots to watch with infrared cameras. But one slide in a presentation by Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher in March listed each sector's "deployment density," which it defined as having "sufficient assets to detect and respond to illicit cross-border activity." At that point, before the arrival of the temporary detail, the Rio Grande Valley ranked third from the bottom on the Southwest border at 58 percent, compared with 100 percent in San Diego.

The Southwest border totals are less than half the arrests made annually between 2004 and 2006, though they've been rising for the past two years.

When most of the traffic was crossing in Tucson, the overwhelming majority were Mexican citizens.

But of the 7,640 arrests made in the Rio Grande Valley last week, Mexicans ranked fourth, behind people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Widespread gang violence and lack of economic opportunity are cited as factors in the growing numbers of people from those countries. Crossing through Mexico into South Texas is their most direct route.

Immigrant smuggling is a huge business dominated by Mexico's drug cartels, which either cross the groups themselves or collect a tax per head from smugglers.

"These guys watch us," Cabrera said. "They know where we're at, when we're going to be there, when we're going to leave."

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...s-to-catch-up/

Posted Thursday, May 22nd 2014 @ 6pm



An eye opening visit to the Texas-Mexico border by eight state agriculture commissioners, and led by the Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Todd Staples, 1200 WOAI's Michael Board reports.

Staples says many of his fellow commissioners were shocked at the sheer numbers of illegal immigrants being processed by the Border Patrol in McAllen.

"The fact that the thing is overflowing, over capacity, and packed mainly with juveniles was a real shocker," Staples said.

The Border Patrol in South Texas has been flooded in recent weeks with epic numbers of unaccompanied minors, mainly from Central America, where strutting, leftist dictators have made living almost impossible. Crime rates are soaring in Central America, with Honduras, of all places, recently named the most violent country in the world, beating out dysfunctional basket case nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.

Staples says the commissioners noticed the disconnect between what they saw for themselves at the Border Patrol station in McAllen, and what they are hearing from the White House.

"The Administration says the border is secure," Staples said. "But they saw a shipment of contraband and narcotics that was detected at the Pharr International Bridge."

The problem with the flood of undocumented immigrants from Central America keeps getting worse. One thousand people were detained at the McAllen Border Patrol station on Wednesday alone, with many of them crammed into an un-air conditioned garage because there is no place else to hold them.

The recent flood of undocumented immigrants into Texas is blamed on several factors. First of all, increased dissatisfaction with conditions in Central America is prompting many to try to make it into the U.S. Immigrant smuggling 'coyotes' prey on politicians constant prattle about 'immigration reform' by telling families that if their children can just get into the U.S., they will receive what is being described as 'the Obama Amnesty' and then they can bring the rest of their families with them.

Talk of DREAM Act measures which would grant legal status to young people is also fueling the flood of children, some as young as five.

The Border Patrol says apprehensions in Fiscal 2014 in the Rio Grande Valley are already up 69% just over last year, and the situation is expected to get worse.

http://www.woai.com/articles/woai-lo...egals-12381050

Added AP article to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=2...atch-Up-Report