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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.