.Death at the Border: What 'They' Don't Tell You About Border Security

Sylvia Cochran – Sat Jan 8, 6:03 pm ET

COMMENTARY

If the president's call is for comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act functioned as its first salvo, then the call for border security is the new battle cry. Lost in the rhetoric are border patrol realities that do not fit neatly into the daily talking points.

Seventeen-year-old Ramses Barron Torres, a Mexican national, was killed in Arizona. Illegal-immigrant advocates claim he was murdered by Border patrol early in January, 2011. During the night that he died, friends state that Torres just happened to be in the area.

Border patrol agents assert that Torres (along with his friends) threw rocks at the border patrol agents who were following up a lead to nab drug smugglers. It appears that the Mexican boy and his friends were on the American side of the border but attempted to scramble back into Mexico when the altercation took place.

Border patrol agent Brian Terry was killed while on duty late in 2010. The killing is thought to have been perpetrated by a gang that specializes in robbing illegal aliens who are crossing the border at clandestine locations. Terry was no wide-eyed newbie; a former marine and current member of the border security's special response team, he understood the danger he faced on a daily basis.

Turning the clock back to July, 2009 reminds of the killing of Robert Rosas. This border security officer was murdered when he responded to a call complaining of "suspicious activity" in an area that authorities know to be a route taken by smugglers.

Seeking to squelch the violence along the Mexican-American border - and showing that he hears the calls for increased border security - President Obama has sent 1,200 National Guard troops to California, Arizona and New Mexico.

There is only one problem with this type of border patrol: National Guard troops must not get involved with civilians (on either the Mexican or American sides of the border) and they do not take into custody anyone they see breaking the law. Instead, they watch and report any incidents to the Border patrol.

A thus-neutered form of enforcement makes one wonder if border security is becoming more of a political football designed to placate those opposed to comprehensive immigration reform than an actual Band Aid designed to fix an immigration and border violence problem.

Is the beefed up border security in response to the deaths little more than lip service? After all, what good does it do to have National Guard troops merely watching a strip of dry land but not act?

Part of the problem might have been revealed inadvertently by Senator John Cornyn who is concerned about Mexican President Felipe Calderón's reaction to increased border security. Asserting that "we would take our guidance from him and certainly not do anything that he did not request," this may be the most poignant statement about border enforcement yet.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110108/pl_ ... security_1