Smugglers could focus more on Texas
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Smugglers could focus more on Texas
March 30, 2005, 08:57 AM CST
Migrant smugglers could start favoring routes cutting through Texas as federal agents along the United States' southern border are sent to reinforce immigration patrols in Arizona.
About 155 agents from sectors along the U.S.-Mexico border were expected to be deployed immediately in Arizona as part of a buildup to choke illegal traffic.
The move was to be announced Wednesday. More than 370 additional agents, all new trainees, will be permanently assigned to the Arizona border throughout the year.
Until they are in place, another 200 agents will be temporarily stationed in Arizona for the high immigration season this spring and summer, according to Homeland Department officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
While officials haven't said which stations will send personnel to Arizona, some agents and officials worry even temporary transfers will leave Texas regions less patrolled and more vulnerable.
"You can't rob Peter to pay Paul and end up with the coverage that you need," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing more than 9,000 agents. "It's going to leave some gaps."
While sending more staff to Arizona "will allow that door to close more, they're going to obligate the migration flow to move," said Jorge Luis Mireles Navarro, regional delegate for National Migration Institute in Sonora, Mexico.
One of the areas with the potential for becoming an active smuggling route could go through Big Bend National Park, Mireles said. Few Border Patrol agents guard the park, where two Mexican states, Coahuila and Chihuahua, converge with Texas. Also, all roads in the park end at the Rio Grande.
Already overburdened agents remaining in the feeding southern sectors will have to work, and possibly try to stop even more illegal immigration, with fewer resources, Bonner said.
Agents in New Mexico as well as the El Paso, McAllen and Del Rio sectors in Texas started seeing more illegal traffic in their regions after an effort launched last spring brought additional agents and technology to the Arizona border, union officials said.
During the 1990s, apprehensions in San Diego and El Paso and southern Texas fell dramatically after the Border Patrol launched tougher operations in those sectors.
But then Arizona became the busiest illegal entry point on the frontier. For years, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which patrols most of Arizona, has led the nation in apprehensions.
"I think that the problems that San Diego had, and then moved to Arizona are coming to a neighborhood near you in Texas," Bonner said.
