Arizona: Then And Now Progress Made Along The Southwest Border

NDN has been fortunate to have had conversations with elected officials and local law enforcement leaders in Arizona about the  border, across the board those that we have talked too have said that along the United States Mexico border there has been a marked improvements in security.

Denise Wagner of The Arizona Republic has written a piece that does an excellent job of contextualizing just how much the border has undergone a transformation over the last several years. The full article can be read HERE. The article starts by recounting how the Yuma Sector of the Border has come under control, and the steps that are being taken to achieve similar results in Tucson:

Along a bleak expanse of U.S. border in western Arizona, where the sun beats down mercilessly, Border Patrol agents nowadays spend a lot of time listening to wind blow across the sand dunes.  Once a thoroughfare for hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossers, the Yuma Sector now records barely 7,000 arrests each year. The 126-mile stretch of landscape is the only southwestern border segment listed under "operational control" by the Department of Homeland Security.

Operational Control, is what DHS uses to describe areas: where officials are reasonably ensured of capturing most crossers. Yuma achieved this status by:

• Engaging in Operation Jump Start. This program employs National Guard troops  to build multilayered fences and vehicle barriers along the entire Mexican line.
• The Border Patrol tripled its number of agents in the area.
• Employing Observation posts, equipped with giant spotlights.
• Engaging in a Justice Department program Operation Streamline which  imposed a new prosecution policy which does not engage in a catch release program but jails all immigrants that are caught

These strategies showed results:

As word spread about the campaign, drug runners and human smugglers abandoned their routes in the Yuma area. The number of illegal immigrants apprehended in the desert plummeted from 138,460 in 2005 to 7,116 last year. "It was chaos," said Rodolfo "Rudy" Karisch, acting chief agent of the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector. "Now, we've been able to manage it. . . . The border can be controlled if you apply the right resources."

While critics of the Administrations strategy are quick to point out that what worked in Yuma may not work in Tucson, where seizures of drugs have reached high levels, However the Border patrol is putting similar resources to work in Tucson.

A helicopter rises above Tucson, quickly leaving cityscape behind for barren desert.On board are Bersin and two other Department of Homeland Security officials most responsible for securing the border with Mexico: Mike Fisher, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, and Randy Hill, head of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. The administrators note that criminals who operated in Yuma for decades now run their smuggling operations across the rugged terrain below, competing for routes. Although tactics used in Operation Jump Start are being employed in the Tucson Sector, they say, this is a different environment: The region is tangled with mountain ranges - the Chiricahuas, Huachucas, Patagonias and Baboquivaris - that provide forest cover with few roads and limited radio access. Even at lower elevations, the desert here is often thick with foliage and marked by arroyos.

While it would be impossible to know exactly how the situation will improve, CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin is confident that the "trends are right" for a marked improvement in the future:

Aboard the CBP helicopter, Bersin talks about progress in the Tucson Sector: A decade ago, 616,000 undocumented immigrants were captured. Last year, even with far more manpower and technology, there were 212,000 apprehensions. Bersin says, the numbers show illegal traffic is subsiding; smugglers are being forced into the wilds. "It's not inconsistent to say the border is safer and more secure than it's ever been and to say there's more to be done," he adds. As the helicopter lands at the Border Patrol station in Ajo, Bersin is asked when the government will gain "effective control" of the entire Arizona line. He hesitates. "I wouldn't tell you it will be a year from now or three years from now, but it could happen faster than you think," he says. "The trends are right."