Thread: ACLU says Texas' Border Star program is waste of resources

12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, March 19, 2009
By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News
eramshaw@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – The state's $110 million Border Star program, designed to help local authorities combat violent crime and drug smuggling, has been ineffective and a waste of resources, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas said Wednesday.



FILE 2006/The Associated Press
Border Patrol agent Alejandro Mendez (top) and Sgt. Jose Balli from the Texas National Guard monitor video footage at the Harlingen Border Patrol Station. In a study of 11 of the 40 border law enforcement agencies participating in the program, the group said authorities were stopping and searching thousands of vehicles but making few drug seizures and arrests. Also, it said, the 13 surveillance cameras set up on the border – a $2 million investment – netted just three arrests in their first six months of operation.

The ACLU said Operation Border Star's performance measures encourage law officers to engage in work that doesn't truly protect Texans from drug crime and emphasize geographic areas other than major drug corridors.

What resulted "was a disruption of the lives of ordinary citizens," said ACLU policy analyst Laura Martin, who noted that the 29 other police and sheriff's departments in Border Star didn't respond to the request for information.

Program supporters say that although it may not have recorded great numbers of drug arrests, it's a deterrent. And they said the departments studied by the ACLU account for just $5 million of the $110 million allocated and aren't a representative sample.

"It's proven that more boots on the ground disrupt and deter criminal activity along the border," said Katherine Cesinger, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. "The governor believes that Operation Border Star and the state-led border security efforts are working."

The Legislature set aside $110 million for Operation Border Star two years ago to aid local law enforcement efforts against drug smuggling and cartel violence along the Texas-Mexico border.

The ACLU study found that outside of El Paso, there was little police work linked to serious crimes. Instead, police stopped thousands of ordinary people on minor traffic issues.

The agencies examined have seized roughly $300,000 and made 58 gang member arrests – 53 of them by the El Paso Police Department alone. Of the 1,110 drug arrests these departments made in connection with Border Star, 95 percent happened in El Paso.

In Cameron County, where the sheriff's office received a grant of nearly $440,000, authorities reported only one crime over 90 days: an aggravated assault.

The Val Verde County sheriff's office reported searching 851 vehicles in 83 days, resulting in just one substantial drug seizure and three minor ones.

And the Del Rio Police Department, which received $54,000 for its first 109 days, reported 1 drug seizure, 12 drug arrests and 72 arrests for public drunkenness.

Three participating law enforcement agencies were tarnished by the arrests, indictments, or convictions of their chiefs on organized crime charges.

"Law enforcement activities are having a marginal impact on public safety at best," said ACLU policy director Rebecca Bernhardt. Instead of reporting public drunkenness and traffic violations, "the departments themselves need a much narrower set of deliverables."

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Come and join : ) http://www.blueservo.net - Watch the Border

We all know the ACLU is a blatant waste of resources. They support open borders, importation of drugs, sex offenders including rapists, child molesters, murderers, identity thieves, MS-13 and other violent gangs (the Virginia chapter president had child pornography on his computer). Taxpayers need to force this government to stop giving tax dollars to this usurper of the Constitution, our soveriengty and way of life.