http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_5352748

Retired agent takes helm of border sheriffs' coalition
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 03/04/2007 12:00:00 AM MST


Would you take a job where your pay was guaranteed for only a year, where you had 18 bosses likely to call you at all hours and where a vocal chunk of El Paso's residents regularly criticized your work?
Probably not. But Donald Reay did.

Reay, 60, is the new executive director of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition, the group of 18 Texas sheriffs that is behind Operation Linebacker and that has inspired many state border security initiatives. He replaces Rick Glancey, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office spokesman who was interim executive director for the association since its creation a year and a half ago.

The association operates this year thanks to a $3.8 million state grant for Operation Linebacker, which pays for equipment and overtime for border sheriff's deputies. The association will try to have the grant renewed next year, but nothing is certain.

"I'm not looking for security," Reay said. "What I'm looking for is to have the challenge of a cause. I believe in the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition."

Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores, one of Reay's bosses, said Reay understood the coalition's mission.
"The most important thing for us is that people at the state level and the national level understand that the border is very sought after. This is where the narco and human trafficking happens. It's been obvious when we speak to people in Washington, D.C., a lot of representatives don't know what's happening in our neck of the woods," Flores said.

Flores expects a continued increase in drug violence around Laredo because of Mexico's crackdown on the drug cartels. He has six or seven deputies per shift patrolling 3,400 square miles, he said.

Like the other two finalists for the coalition job, Reay is a retired law enforcement officer. The Douglas, Ariz., native was a Border Patrol agent, a U.S. Customs agent and a Drug Enforcement Administration agent. When he retired, he became a consultant for customs and other agencies. He lives in El Paso.

There will be little excitement for Reay in his new job, as it mostly requires making sure the sheriffs are spending the grant according to guidelines. Reay, who is paid $60,000 -- less than he could be making as a consultant -- has an assistant and an office off Executive Center Boulevard.

Grant rules say he is not allowed to lobby. But Reay said he would speak out to "educate" and dispel "misconceptions" that exist about Operation Linebacker, especially in El Paso County.

Residents and community advocates have criticized El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego's implementation of Operation Linebacker, saying it focused on identifying otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants to turn them over to the Border Patrol, instead of arresting criminals. A study of the program by the El Paso Times last year found that sheriff's deputies caught seven times as many undocumented immigrants as crime suspects during the first six months of Operation Linebacker.

Many law enforcement officials and experts have discouraged local police from doing anything that would be perceived as enforcing federal immigration laws for fear of hurting community policing efforts in immigrant communities.

Reay said he had no plans to reach out to the Border Network for Human Rights or other critics. Reay, who was the El Paso Sheriff's Office training director for a while, said he agreed fully with Samaniego.

Like other defenders of Operation Linebacker, Reay said catching undocumented immigrants was only a byproduct of the increased patrolling, not its end.

"They (sheriff's deputies) are bound by law to refer to the proper authorities. I guess they have an option. But they would be wrong if they didn't exercise the option of referral" to the Border Patrol, he said.

This month, the coalition added two counties -- Pecos and Zavala -- that are not directly on the border but are on on the path of migrant and drug smugglers. The other sheriffs will share their grant with the newcomers, and there are no other plans to add to the group, Reay said.

Steve Westbrook, executive director of the Sheriffs' Association of Texas, said he expected the border coalition's influence to grow this year.

"They're getting a lot accomplished," he said, "and I think it's going to continue as long as they keep focused."