Thread: Border Patrol offices to remain open for now

Border Patrol offices to remain open for now

Posted: October 18, 2012 - 11:01pm

By AZIZA MUSA
October 18, 2012 11:01 PM EDT

Four West Texas U.S. Border Patrol offices, including one in Amarillo, are likely to remain open until March, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry said Thursday.

In a meeting with about a dozen local law enforcement officers, the Clarendon Republican said he heard tales of what Border Patrol agents did for the agencies and the type of support local authorities need.

Thornberry plans to take the information from the meeting to grill Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials about alternate plans to fill a potential law enforcement gap in the Texas Panhandle, he said.

In July, federal lawmakers temporarily halted the Border Patrol’s plan to close nine offices after legislators pressed the agency about the move. Thornberry said he expects the delays to last until federal legislators can resolve the budget.

Border Patrol officials said closing nine offices across the country would save $1.3 million per year, according to a July statement from Thornberry’s office. But agency officials have told lawmakers the cost of the closures could total an estimated $2.47 million in fiscal year 2013.

“I know that government needs to cut spending wherever they can cut spending,” Randall County Sheriff Joel Richardson said. “Cutting in this area — it just seems to me that there’s other places that could possibly be more significant savings without hurting an area as large as the Panhandle, which is 26,000 square miles.”

The agency’s Big Bend Sector, where the Amarillo office is located, saw 4,036 apprehensions — 638 arrests by Amarillo and Lubbock agents alone — and more than 55,000 pounds of marijuana seized in fiscal year 2011. The sector covers more than 135,000 square miles and more than 118 counties in Texas and Oklahoma — the largest geographical area of any sector along the Southwest border, according to the agency’s website.

“If we have a wreck with eight people in a van, and their vehicle is disabled and they’re undocumented aliens, there’s no Texas law that lets us do anything with those people,” Richardson said. “And we don’t know what to do with them. We’re not set up to handle that.”

Richardson said it didn’t matter which federal agency will handle illegal immigrants, “as long as there’s a solution that works as well as it does now.”

“But if this isn’t broke, I’m not sure why we’re taking steps to deactivate the office,” he said.

It has remained unclear for months whether ICE officials will assist local law enforcement if Border Patrol changes are implemented.
Thornberry said he left the meeting Thursday with doubts that ICE will step up.

“ICE seems to have a policy that they only will get involved in a situation if a court has determined that this person has committed a crime in the United States,” he said. “But what we talked about that the Border Patrol helps with is helping figure out whether this person has committed a crime in the United States. So (Border Patrol agents) help get in front of it.”

Border Patrol agents have access to certain databases and expertise in forged documents that can lead to a suspect involved in a major crime, he said.

Thornberry said he aims to meet with the two federal agencies next month to hash out future plans.

“If (Border Patrol’s) argument is ICE can do it, we’re going to make them prove it,” Thornberry said. “And otherwise, we’re going to try to prevent them from taking away these resources from local law enforcement.”

Border Patrol offices to remain open for now | Amarillo Globe-News

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