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View Full Version : Imagine that, fewer boarder crossers...



Roopull
02-15-2007, 10:59 AM
Surprise Surprise! Sending armed troops to man the border leads to a huge decrease in illegals coming across the border! Imagine that! Baffling, I tell you! BAFFLING!:uhoh:

I do have to wonder WTF to the part in red...

In the end, though, I'm all for a few guard towers armed with snipers to just kill 'em as they come. ;)
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/sniper10.jpg

Only those who doubt my honesty & think I'd actually make this up should click this link. (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/2/14/215851.shtml?s=lh)

Guard Presence Drops Illegal Crossings 62 Percent
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Feb. 15, 2007

One phrase sums up both the chief achievement and complaint of National Guard soldiers and airmen posted along this dusty strip of border with Mexico: "Nothing happening."

That's good news for Operation Jumpstart, President Bush's eight-month-old initiative to reinforce America's southern border with National Guard troops until enough border patrol agents are trained. The extra troops appear to be discouraging people from trying to cross illegally.

Apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the Yuma sector – one of the busiest for the past two years and a top target for the operation – have dropped 62 percent in the last four months compared with the same period a year ago. That's the biggest drop of all nine border patrol sectors on the frontier with Mexico and double the average decline. The amount of marijuana seized in the Yuma sector fell 36 percent for the same period.

The figures for the entire southern border – a 27 decline in apprehensions and a 51 percent increase in marijuana seized – are encouraging, experts say.

"If those numbers hold [for the entire fiscal year], that would indeed represent a significant drop," says Luis Cabrera, an expert on transnational justice issues at Arizona State University in Tempe. "We're pretty sure there's a deterrence effect."

President Bush visited this busy crossing point last May to introduce his program to supplement US border patrol agents with National Guard soldiers and airmen for two years (6,000 the first year, 3,000 the next).

Of those, 2,400 are posted in Arizona, which has the two top-priority sectors in the operation – Tucson and Yuma.

"We have had 49 states participate in the border mission in Arizona, with 7,758 [troops] coming through Arizona," says Maj. Paul Aguirre, spokesman for Operation Jumpstart in Arizona. "Roughly 40 percent of the effort is in Arizona."

Moreover, some 500 additional border patrol agents have bolstered the efforts in the Yuma sector this past year, as have added infrastructure – National Guard helicopters, miles of triple fences, lights, cameras, and sensors.

Still, it's the highly visible National Guard troops that most here say are having the biggest deterrent effect. With their limited support roles (they can't apprehend nor arrest individuals), they are freeing border patrol agents from routine duties, such as fence-building and repair, so they can spend more time nabbing illegal infiltrators.

Watching the smugglers watch them

A few miles from town along the dusty levee between the Colorado River and the Salinity Canal, two National Guard soldiers man a station. (The media can no longer identify the soldiers because border patrol intelligence officers have learned that smugglers have placed a $30,000 to $50,000 bounty on their heads.) The two Guardsmen from North Carolina are dressed in camouflage fatigues. They carry M-16 rifles and high-powered binoculars that enable them to see clearly across to Mexico – often to see smugglers looking back at them through their binoculars.

They stand in front of a Chevy Blazer painted in camouflage next to their tent. Their shifts vary, but they are mainly deployed in groups of four for 48 to 72 hours. Two stand watch for four- or six-hour shifts while the other two sleep in the tent.

The North Carolina men, who were previously deployed to Iraq, have been posted here for the entire time.

The days "start to run into each other after a while. We basically observe and let border patrol know what we see," says one.

In the entire four months they've stood here, watching and waiting, they've seen only two families – four or five people in each group – attempting to cross. One of the men says it is difficult to report these people. "I wonder what would make me do that – climb into that icy cold river holding my child above my head? You can be compassionate, but you have to do your job, report them."

In both cases where the Guardsmen observed people attempting to cross, they called the border patrol who arrived within 15 minutes and apprehended the illegal immigrants.

A little farther down the dirt road is another outpost, one of 20 to 60 such sites strategically located according to intelligence gleaned from smugglers at various spots along the Yuma sector's 125-mile border section.

The two Guardsmen manning this post, also previously deployed in Iraq, are from Washington State. These two men – dressed similarly and toting the same weapons – have been here since October.

"We haven't seen anybody in a long time – maybe since November," says the more talkative of the two. "But there's always stuff to do, like we make Crystal Light, sanitize our hands, make sun tea. Talk to the BP and get their input when they stop.

"They," he says, pointing to border patrol senior agent Chris Van Wagenen, "have to put up with driving and air conditioning. We don't."

Mr. Van Wagenen responds that it's because of these highly visible men that the Yuma sector is now apprehending about only 100 illegal immigrants per day, compared with 500 to 600 a year ago.

The Washington Guardsmen's boredom is briefly interrupted by Rosita's catering truck from San Luis, a nearby town. This is the fourth day of servicing the National Guardsmen, according to John Anguian, the driver. These men – and several others along the levy – are thrilled to eat tostadas and refried beans rather than their MREs (meals ready to eat).

Overall, the Guardsmen say they are content with their roles and even praise it as a mission providing good training for Iraq – "We're staying in a tent in the dust – it's a lot like over there."

His partner pipes in. "But we're here in the good old U.S. of A., and we haven't been shot at."

Close calls with smugglers

There have, however, been some close calls. border patrol agents say that one of the indicators that Operation Jumpstart is successful is that violent attacks on officers are up at the border (a 28 percent increase in the Yuma sector alone).

"We are definitely putting a dent in their pocketbooks," says Van Wagenen, "and they are going to try to intimidate you, resort to violence."

Most assaults are rock-throwing incidents, but there have been other, more-serious incidents. In early January, for example, four armed men from Mexico approached an Arizona observation post manned by a team of four National Guard soldiers, armed with M-16s.

The National Guard left the post as the Mexican gunmen closed in, as their rules of engagement require. The gunmen disappeared back into Mexico before border patrol agents arrived.

The incident has been controversial in that many politicians in Arizona, especially, are calling for the National Guard to become more proactive.

Still, many believe the initiative is beneficial, but wonder how long the operation can be maintained and what will happen if and when the National Guard leaves.

"Once the resources are brought in, you have to not only make the change, but those resources have to stay there to maintain the change," says Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "You can't simply do an interruption and go back to the status quo ante and expect that it is going to hold."

Professor Cabrera agrees: "To truly gain operational control of the border – to stop unauthorized immigration in the way people speak about – will resemble a major military operation in cost and size of undertaking."

© 2007 The Christian Science Monitor.

5stringJeff
02-15-2007, 11:15 AM
Good! Let's send more!

trobinett
02-15-2007, 01:20 PM
How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico
By John Dillin
WASHINGTON – George W. Bush isn't the first Republican president to face a full-blown immigration crisis on the US-Mexican border.
Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.
President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents - less than one-tenth of today's force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.
Although there is little to no record of this operation in Ike's official papers, one piece of historic evidence indicates how he felt. In 1951, Ike wrote a letter to Sen. William Fulbright (D) of Arkansas. The senator had just proposed that a special commission be created by Congress to examine unethical conduct by government officials who accepted gifts and favors in exchange for special treatment of private individuals.
General Eisenhower, who was gearing up for his run for the presidency, said "Amen" to Senator Fulbright's proposal. He then quoted a report in The New York Times, highlighting one paragraph that said: "The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government."
Years later, the late Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower's first attorney general, said in an interview with this writer that the president had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration when he took office.
America "was faced with a breakdown in law enforcement on a very large scale," Mr. Brownell said. "When I say large scale, I mean hundreds of thousands were coming in from Mexico [every year] without restraint."
Although an on-and-off guest-worker program for Mexicans was operating at the time, farmers and ranchers in the Southwest had become dependent on an additional low-cost, docile, illegal labor force of up to 3 million, mostly Mexican, laborers.
According to the Handbook of Texas Online, published by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, this illegal workforce had a severe impact on the wages of ordinary working Americans. The Handbook Online reports that a study by the President's Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas in 1950 found that cotton growers in the Rio Grande Valley, where most illegal aliens in Texas worked, paid wages that were "approximately half" the farm wages paid elsewhere in the state.
Profits from illegal labor led to the kind of corruption that apparently worried Eisenhower. Joseph White, a retired 21-year veteran of the Border Patrol, says that in the early 1950s, some senior US officials overseeing immigration enforcement "had friends among the ranchers," and agents "did not dare" arrest their illegal workers.
Walt Edwards, who joined the Border Patrol in 1951, tells a similar story. He says: "When we caught illegal aliens on farms and ranches, the farmer or rancher would often call and complain [to officials in El Paso]. And depending on how politically connected they were, there would be political intervention. That is how we got into this mess we are in now."
Bill Chambers, who worked for a combined 33 years for the Border Patrol and the then-called US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), says politically powerful people are still fueling the flow of illegals.
During the 1950s, however, this "Good Old Boy" system changed under Eisenhower - if only for about 10 years.
In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph "Jumpin' Joe" Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner.
Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing's close connections to the president shielded him - and the Border Patrol - from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.
One of Swing's first decisive acts was to transfer certain entrenched immigration officials out of the border area to other regions of the country where their political connections with people such as Senator Johnson would have no effect.
Then on June 17, 1954, what was called "Operation Wetback" began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.
By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas.
By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily.
Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free.
Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.
The sea voyage was "a rough trip, and they did not like it," says Don Coppock, who worked his way up from Border Patrolman in 1941 to eventually head the Border Patrol from 1960 to 1973.
Mr. Coppock says he "cannot understand why [President] Bush let [today's] problem get away from him as it has. I guess it was his compassionate conservatism, and trying to please [Mexican President] Vincente Fox."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html


Right NOW, there are between 12 to 20 million illegals in our country.

This is a SERIOUS problem, and people in position to deal with this problem are going to have to be held responsible.

Lock, and load.:flameth:

LiberalNation
02-15-2007, 10:14 PM
I can see why they would want the NG troops to leave if they are fired on. The government can't want the scandal of troops getting killed on our boarder which would cause a lot of problems with Mexican relations and lead to a fire storm in the US.

As for illegal aliens, the situation looks to me they are like any other wave of immigration the US has absorbed. It's not one of the main issues I would worry about.

Gunny
02-15-2007, 10:45 PM
I can see why they would want the NG troops to leave if they are fired on. The government can't want the scandal of troops getting killed on our boarder which would cause a lot of problems with Mexican relations and lead to a fire storm in the US.

As for illegal aliens, the situation looks to me they are like any other wave of immigration the US has absorbed. It's not one of the main issues I would worry about.

I can't. Armed US troops are trained to, and should be allowed to return fire when fired upon, especially where the security of this Nation is concerned.

You would be incorrect on point #2 since "any other wave of immigration" has been mostly done legally.