Thread: Military helps snag migrants

www.borderlandnews.com

Military helps snag migrants
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

Soldiers perched on top of Stryker armored vehicles, scanning the desert with cutting-edge surveillance equipment, led to the capture of 1,802 undocumented immigrants in one month west of Columbus, N.M., Border Patrol officials said Tuesday.

The soldiers are helping the Border Patrol spot immigrants and drug smugglers but can't search, seize, detain or make arrests because federal law prohibits the use of the military to enforce civil law.

"This support mission is mutually beneficial," Border Patrol spokesman Dough Mosier said. "It provides additional eyes and ears in the field in support of our anti-terrorism mission. It also provides the military with an invaluable desert training opportunity. It's been a very productive mission."

Border Patrol officials have attributed a recent spike in apprehensions in the El Paso sector, which covers El Paso County and all of New Mexico, partly to the presence of the soldiers. About 10,200 undocumented immigrants were caught last month in the sector, compared with fewer than 7,000 in October of last year.

Ray Thomson, a Columbus retiree who joined the New Mexico chapter of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corp, welcomed the soldiers' presence. "I guess they're picking up a lot of people, but (undocumented immigrants are) still coming through," he said.

The soldiers, from the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Lewis, Wash., can be seen most days parked on both sides of N.M. Highway 9 west of Columbus. The rest of the time they are training at Fort Bliss, officials said.

The temporary mission continues, although officials won't say for how much longer in order to protect operation security.

"It's an opportunity to deploy as they would anywhere in the world, with their equipment," said Armando Carrasco, the spokesman for Joint Task Force North, an interagency program that provides military support for law enforcement agencies working on homeland security missions.

The soldiers also helped in five drug seizures totaling 1,020 pounds of marijuana with a street value of $816,000, officials said.

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Wednesday, November 16, 2005 · Last updated 2:04 p.m. PT

Border Patrol: Border mission with troops a success

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS, N.M. -- The Border Patrol says a monthlong mission with troops from Fort Lewis, Wash., doing round-the-clock reconnaissance along the border was a success in helping deter people coming into the country illegally from Mexico.

The presence of the soldiers helped turn back about 1,000 would-be border crossers and moved others away from the mission's patrol area between Columbus and Hachita, Rick Moody, agent in charge of the Border Patrol's Deming station, said Tuesday.

The mission began in mid-October and is ending this week. Hundreds of soldiers from the Army's 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment from Fort Lewis helped catch 1,922 people who crossed the border illegally and seized more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana, Moody said.

The soldiers, using Stryker vehicles equipped with long-range surveillance equipment, find people crossing the desert, then direct Border Patrol agents by radio to the location.

Soldiers are not involved in pursuits, apprehensions, detentions or arrests, said Lt. Col. Jeff Peterson, the squadron commander.

"Our sole purpose is to observe and report," Peterson said.

The military's surveillance equipment can spot people at a distance of more than 10 miles, much farther than the Border Patrol's cameras along the border near Columbus.

The military mission acted as a "force multiplier" for the Border Patrol, Moody said.

"It frees resources in the field to go out and make apprehensions," he said.

Moody said captures of immigrants are up 120 percent in the Deming sector compared to the corresponding period last year. Overall, apprehensions at the Deming station account for 46 percent of all immigrants caught in the agency's El Paso, Texas, sector, which includes West Texas and all of New Mexico.

Border Patrol agents in the Deming sector have captured 7,128 illegal immigrants since the start of the federal fiscal year Oct. 1, Moody said.

Ranchers who had Stryker units on their leased land gave the mission mixed reviews.

"The military troops are greatly appreciated, but from our observations, I did not see the (immigration) activity slow down one bit. The traffic going across our ranch has continued," said Joe Johnson, whose family operates a 100,000-acre ranch west of Columbus.

However, Murray Keeler, owner of the 25,600-acre Flying W Ranch west of Hachita, said immigrant traffic went down dramatically when the troops arrived. His wife, in appreciation, took chicken and dumplings one night and hamburgers another night to troops stationed near the ranch.

"I hate to see them leave," Keeler said.