New Mexico ranchers frustrated with situation along U.S.-Mexico border

Part of the problem, as the ranchers see it, is the lack of barriers between the U.S. and Mexico. In parts of Hidalgo County, the countries are separated, in some places, by Normandy barriers. 

Normandy barriers are a series of 3 -5 feet high steel cross jacks that would deter a motorist, but humans could easily go under or over them. The boundary with Hidalgo County and Mexico is separated by a 5-foot high barbed wire fence.  In some areas, there are gates that easily open. 

Ranchers told KOB 4 that drug smugglers often open those gates and drive drugs into the U.S.

Understand and agree completely.  Living in the SE corner of Cochise County, the next county to the West of Hidalgo County about 40 miles away, we have many of the same problems here. We get the same dog and pony show for the head in the sand politicians from DC who want to come "look" at the border. When they come down, probably do not spend more than one hour, talk to very few of the CBP agents actually working the border areas and almost never speak to the local residents who deal with problems on the border on a day to day basis, because the higher ups know they would get a earfull. All the while being lead around by CBP upper level beaurocrats that rarely spend much time on the physical border. Fact is that the borders in much of rural Arizona and New Mexico have more holes in than them than a pasta strainer! For anybody that wants a true picture of what goes on on our borders, I highly recommend a book titled "The Reaper's Line: Life And Death On The Mexican Border" by Lee Morgan. The book is about 8 to10 years old but still quite relevant. Mr Morgan is retired CBP and ICE Special Agent who spent more than 20 years working the AZ/Mexico border. He knows the border like few others and he pulls no punches.

Yeah, our "new" governor and her staff visited our border at St. Theresa Port.  St. Theresa is on I-10, 3 miles from El Paso and is very heavily patrolled primarily for the drug trafficking, Cartel warfare, and the smuggling through the port.  The "wall climbers" are over on your side of the border of AZ/NM where, just last week, 376 were caught in one night crawling through tunnels cut under the OLD fencing and 100 were captured last night after climbing the wall with a ladder furnished by the Coyote.

" More than 100 migrants have been taken into custody after being caught on camera scaling a border wall in Arizona - one week after 376 others had dug their way in near the same location.

'On Monday #CBP #YumaSector Border Patrol agents apprehended a group of 110+ Central Americans who illegally scaled the wall with the assistance of a smuggler with a ladder,' read a tweet from the agency's verified Twitter account, posted on Wednesday afternoon.

Video shows person after person hopping down to US soil after coming over the the top of the wall from the Mexico side. 

On January 14, officials said 376 Central Americans migrants entered the US illegally through holes below the structure at the Arizona border."

dailymail.co.uk

Watch the video in the article - absolutely ballsy - no doubt about it.

And we ain't got no problem down here, eh????

Nope, no crisis at the border at all. It's all manufactured...

I highly recommend a book titled "The Reaper's Line: Life And Death On The Mexican Border" by Lee Morgan.

Thanks, I think I'll send for it.

Vic, ''Lines and Shadows'' by Joseph Wambaugh. Excellent true account of life on the border.

Thanks

In my area, and I am sure Hidalgo County is no different, when the drug smugglers go through areas out in the desert where the fence is 6 foot chainlink or just 3 strand barbed wire, the Mexican military or Mexican Federal Police routinely provide security for the cartels bringing drugs through and actually come onto U.S. soil! They are usually more heavily armed than the CBP. I have seen this from a distance with my own eyes. 

facebook

Below, picture of some of the 376 Illegal Aliens who crossed last week.  Their first words???  "WE NEED FREE MEDICAL CARE".  Notice also that most of them are young boys and men.

Nah, politicians, pundits and know-it-alls in NYC, San Fran and Chicago know much better than they do.

Just ask them

The democrats do nothing while Americans suffer. Party before nation.

Too much of this story is too much hysteria.  Driving through gates?  Really?  Heavy artillery?  Is it Russian, Chinese or American manufacture?

Stay in NY where you're protected from rising Deli prices, cappuccinos and lattes, rude cab drivers and immigration.

You, seriously, know absolutely nothing about our lives in the SW.  So, in the future, please don't make comments unless you can supply some facts and intelligent discussion.

[deleted]

Ah, another self proclaimed know it all who lives nowhere near the border and gets all their "facts" from progressive leftist liberal news  rags...

[deleted]

Too much of this story is too much hysteria.

You have no reason to assume the people reporting these things are any less rational than you. Except for one thing: they are saying something that doesn't work for you politically. Because of politics, you will not hear their cries for help.

Assumptions?  Yeah.  There are those too.

"Work for you politically?"   Don't know.  The man said 'Mexico would pay for the wall'.  That's what he said.  Slice and dice it and its still what the man said.

Cries for help?  Whose?

[deleted/taunting]

Cries for help?  Whose?

Did you bother to read the article?

The situation is so desperate, the Hidalgo County Manager wrote a letter to the governor and Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, begging for more assistance.

. . .  they just want more help

Tacos - one of the major problems with many commenters is that - they are swing-by shooters who relish at one-lining on topics they have no familiarity of or haven't read.

“We have to get the word out that we have a crisis down here,”

Democrats won't listen. From hundreds of miles away, they are convinced there is no crisis. They always know better. Anyone who disagrees is a racist.

And from Hidalgo, TX we have this: Texas Border Landowners Vow To Reject Buyouts For Trump’s Wall

“You could give me a trillion dollars and I wouldn’t take it,” said Cavazos, whose land sits along the Rio Grande, the river separating the U.S. and Mexico in Texas. “It’s not about money.”

Not all along the border see a crisis situation.

Not all along the border see a crisis situation.

Especially if they are watering their cattle in the Rio Grande. We would give up our side of the river if we build a wall there. I get all that, but please don't dismiss what others face who live along the southern border, which is a very long border.

The problem I see is a barrier would go up whether a land owner wants it or not. Eminent domain will kick in. The feds decide where to build.

There are still between 65 and 75 open ED cases from the last government land grab (ED) 2006, Texas.

only in Texas.

Only in Texas.

I'm not dismissing anyone. Just trying to show that not all people who live on the border want what the right wants.

Having lived and worked on the border and with offices in Mexico, I do know what that the problems are. I have also lived quite a ways away from the border so I'm used to hearing both sides of the argument. 

Here is my take on it...

1. Between 40 and 50% of illegals (according to various reports) overstay their visa's. If this is true it would seem to me that this would be an area to concentrate on since it may be easier to ''fix'' this then building a wall for over a thousand miles. It would be a good start until the ''wall/fence/barrier'' argument could be settled.

2. When Trump ordered and funded an increase in BP agents two years ago the net result is that the BP cannot ever replace those that are quiting and retiring. We have a net loss of agents. There are a number of reasons for this and I'm going to post an article from the LA Times. 

The ranchers and others can request all the additional help they want, it simply isn't there and may never be there. 

Two years after President Trump signed orders to hire 15,000 new border agents and immigration officers, the administration has spent tens of millions of dollars in the effort — but has thousands more vacancies than when it began.

In a sign of the difficulties, Customs and Border Protection allocated $60.7 million to Accenture Federal Services, a management consulting firm, as part of a $297-million contract to recruit, vet and hire 7,500 border officers over five years, but the company has produced only 33 new hires so far.

The president’s promised hiring surge steadily lost ground even as he publicly hammered away at the need for stiffer border security, warned of a looming migrant invasion and shut down parts of the government for five weeks over his demands for $5.7 billion from Congress for a border wall.

The Border Patrol gained a total of   120 agents   in 2018, the first net gain in five years

But the agency has come nowhere close to adding more than   2,700 agents   annually, the rate that Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, has said is necessary to meet Trump’s mandated 26,370 border agents by the end of 2021.

“The hiring surge has not begun,” the inspector general’s office at the Department of Homeland Security   concluded   last November.

“We have had ongoing difficulties with regards to hiring levels to meet our operational needs,” a Homeland Security official told The Times on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity. He described the Border Patrol’s gain last year as a “a huge improvement.”

Border security agencies long have faced   challenges   with recruitment and retention of front-line federal law enforcement — in particular Border Patrol agents — much less swiftly hiring 15,000 more.

In March 2017, McAleenan said Customs and Border Protection normally loses about   1,380 agents a year   as agents retire, quit for better-paying jobs or move. Just filling that hole each year has strained resources.

Beyond that, given   historically low illegal immigration   on the southern border, even the Homeland Security inspector general has   questioned the need for the surge.

But administration officials argue an immigration system designed for single, adult Mexican men has become woefully outdated.

“The number of families and children we are apprehending at the border is at record-breaking levels,” another Homeland Security official said. “It’s having a dramatic impact on Border Patrol’s border security mission.”

Since 2015, CBP officers have been required to work overtime and sent on temporary assignments to “critically understaffed” points on the southwest border, Tony Reardon, president of the union representing about 30,000 CBP officers, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday.

After fighting for years for higher pay, staff and a better hiring process, Reardon said the agency needs to hire more officers for the 328 ports of entry.

“All of this contributes to a stronger border,” he said.

On Jan. 25, 2017, five days after Trump was inaugurated, he signed executive orders to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, vowing to beef up border security and crack down on illegal immigration.

“Today the United States of America gets back control of its borders,” Trump   said   as he signed the orders.

Today, Customs and Border Protection — the Border Patrol’s parent agency — has more than 3,000 job vacancies, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.

That’s about 2,000 more than when Trump signed the orders, according to a   Government Accountability Office   report on CBP’s hiring challenges.

Border Patrol staffing remains below the 21,360 agents mandated by Congress in 2016, which is itself 5,000 less than Trump’s order, according to the latest available data.

The CBP contract with Accenture, awarded in November 2017, has drawn special scrutiny for its high cost and limited results.

CBP officials told the House Homeland Security Committee in November that only 33 new officers had been hired. Under the terms of the contract, the company is paid about $40,000 for each one.

An entry-level Border Patrol agent is paid   $52,583   a year.

In December, the Homeland Security inspector general’s office said Accenture and CBP were “nowhere near” filling the president’s hiring order.

It warned that if problems in the “hastily approved” contract are not addressed, CBP   risks “wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.”

CBP subsequently scaled back the Accenture contract from $297 million to $83 million and issued a partial stop-work order. Officials   said   the agency will decide in March whether to cancel the rest of the contract.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the problem-plagued contract “reinforces my doubts” about CBP leadership.

“CBP cannot simply farm out its hiring and spend hundreds of millions without addressing systemic problems at the agency,” Thompson said.

Deirdre Blackwood, Accenture’s spokeswoman, told The Times, “We remain focused on fulfilling our client’s expectations under our contract.”

The first Homeland Security offical defended the contract. “You’ve got to be willing to innovate and try things. … In no way, shape or form was there fraud, waste or abuse.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement   canceled a solicitation   for a hiring contract with a similar pay structure to Accenture’s last May, citing delays in its hiring timeline and limited funding from Congress.

ICE said at the time it would restart the contracting process by the end of 2018 to help it meet Trump’s hiring order. It has yet to do so.

Homeland Security officials declined to say how much has been spent or how many people have been hired since Trump’s executive orders, saying the partial government shutdown prevented them from accessing the data.

The hiring surge foundered from the start.

In July 2017, six months after Trump signed his executive orders, the Homeland Security inspector general’s office said the agencies were facing “significant challenges” and could not justify the hiring surge.

Officials could not “provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the additional 15,000 additional agents and officers they were directed to hire,” the   inspector general’s office   wrote.

On Friday, Trump signed a bill to reopen the government until Feb. 15, ending the longest   shutdown in U.S. history.   Tens of thousands of Border Patrol agents and CBP officers, among others, worked without pay.

Experts warned that previous attempts at a hiring surge led to greater corruption, a perennial problem for law enforcement on the border.

Drug cartels and other criminal groups target Border Patrol agents, offering bribes or even   sexual favors   to allow migrants, drugs and other contraband to cross the border.

To help fight corruption, the Border Patrol set strict vetting requirements, but those measures have slowed the hiring process.

Border Patrol applicants must pass cognitive, fitness and medical exams. They also must provide financial disclosure, undergo drug tests and pass a law enforcement background check and a polygraph test.

ICE doesn’t require the lie detector test, pays its agents more and places most of them in cities, not at isolated posts along the border.

Supporters of the CBP requirements call them necessary safeguards to prevent the scandals of past hiring surges. Critics view them as an impediment to putting more boots on the border.

CBP’s rigorous hiring requirements, including the polygraph test, were put in place by Congress in 2010 after the agency had doubled in size and Border Patrol notched an increase in corruption and a spate of   deadly incidents.

The FBI still leads 22   border corruption task forces   and working groups nationwide.

In recent years, some lawmakers tried to help CBP   get rid of the polygraph test.   In 2017, the agency got the green light to   waive the   requirement for certain military veterans and began to test a version that improved pass rates.

Partly as a result, CBP has increased hiring of “frontline personnel” by nearly 15% and increased its applicant pool by 40% in the last three years,   according to a Homeland Security 2019 budget document.

The agency has also cut the time it takes to hire from roughly 400 days to about 270 days. The government’s goal for hiring is 80 days, but CBP has said that’s not feasible.

Part of the problem stems from the Trump administration’s funding disputes with Congress over border security.

“We have to hire to the money that we’re appropriated, at the end of the day,” the first Homeland Security official said.

After Trump signed his executive orders in 2017, ICE requested $830 million to hire about 3,000 new officers and build capacity to ultimately bring on 10,000, according to a   Government and Accountability Office report.

Instead, Congress last year gave ICE $15.7 million for 65 new agents plus 70 attorneys and support staff.

Over the past two years, ICE has brought on 1,325 investigators and deportation officers, according to the agency. The agency typically loses   nearly 800 law enforcement officers   each year, so it has not kept pace and remains far behind the president’s order.

For its part, CBP requested $330 million to hire 1,250 Border Patrol agents and build capacity to ultimately hire 5,000, according to the GAO report.

Congress gave CBP about $65 million in 2017 to improve hiring practices and to offer incentives for agents to transfer to understaffed sites. In 2018, it provided $20 million more than the agency sought for recruitment and retention.

“CBP faced high attrition rates even before the Trump administration made it a polarizing organization,” said Thompson, the House Homeland Security chairman.

I don't know what to make of that really. They want 330 million? Yikes.

It also sounds like it would be easier to become a regular cop.

Here is the link to the LA Times article.

latimes

I lived in Tubac AZ for a while, 15 miles from the border. It takes a certain kind of person to live that slow of a life style in that heat.

Never discussed an immigration problem with anyone although we had a neighbor hood watch that went "snipe hunting" almost every evening.

Once in a great while the snipes would turn off their flashlights and shoot back, lol.....

But crime was non existent, we didn't even have a Sheriff or Police Department, I think Tuscon covered us, 40 miles away.

usatoday

One reason the CBP is suffering from a net employment loss is evident in the videos.

All one has to do is read the NM Governor's statement to those ranchers in southern NM to understand the problem. The people be damned, it's about opposing Trump, nothing more, nothing less.

To someone's credit when CA, NM and AZ were admitted to the Union, the Feds claimed a 60 ft easement along the border which is why, most of this border has existing

slat fences, pedestrian barriers, vehicle barricades and in many cases where there is no Federal fence, it was because the ranchers fences were equal to or better.

Of the 48 legal border crossings, only 3 are in NM, 28 in Tx.

Texas had no such arrangement with the Feds and as such, the border is a mixture of private properties, national parks, state parks and Indian reservations all of which will have to be litigated or renegotiated, because there is no easement, only eminent domain.

This is an interesting site with fly bys of Big Bend and why a wall/fence is almost impossible.

usatoday

One reason the CBP is suffering from a net employment loss is evident in the videos.

That's a keeper

Then let them volunteer their land and money for the wall.