Monday, May 7, 2007

Pros Needed for USA-Mexico Border Area Security

By Jerry Brewer

In accordance with continued and vociferous hype on U.S.-Mexico border control issues, President George W. Bush’s recent visit to Arizona was more than a perfunctory political visit.  It was in fact a concerned and responsive effort in further seeking solutions to a complex quagmire of mixed emotions.

To those strategically and realistically astute who recognize that 700 miles of proposed fence is not a panacea for border control, you know it all rests on this nation’s priorities on the overall problem.  Certainly a tip of the hat to the U.S. Executive Branch, in recognizing that the best conceivable short-term solution is an early start on the long-term solution.

The coherent and objective evaluation of the immediate and real needs in border security must be balanced by whether we can patrol the border adequately with reasonable resource allocation. 

Opinion and knee-jerk reaction must clearly be tempered on our immediate border needs, with a sobriety of understanding and a commonsense approach.  It is safe to assume that U.S. technology has failed to stem the flow of a more than US$30 billion drug habit.  Too, commonsense tells us the billions of dollars in proposed fences is no match for the ingenuity of transnational drug smugglers from the south.

Although we can pretend to ignore the thousands of miles of coastal points of entry, air space and Canada, we look south to 2,000 miles of border walling to spend billions of dollars to discourage immigrants from crossing our line in the sand.

No one should be naïve enough to believe that we need to simply walk away or abandon the illegal immigration problem.  In fact, we must diligently work to manage “manageable sectors” of the Mexican border.  Especially those areas competently identified as significant entry or transient locations.  We must also keep in perspective that we are seeking to contain illegal entry and not closing the door on legal migration.

Another significant factor is how border security impacts not only federal law enforcement, but also state and local police jurisdictions.  The vast Texas and Arizona borders, actually much of the Sun Belt, is experiencing tremendous growth.  Consequently, police budgets are thin and workloads are expanding significantly.  To attempt reasonable and effective strategies of interdiction, many of these necessary institutions of authority have reached out to the community for volunteer help.

Citizen participation in law enforcement has been encouraged and utilized successfully over the last decade or so.  Much of that participation resulted from community oriented policing strategies.  However, the threats posed today from the transnational criminals, terrorists, and drug smugglers from the border regions make the citizen patrols impractical, as well as a deadly hazard.  The sophistication, weaponry and associated tactics of the criminals are clearly lethal and certainly challenging to traditional law enforcement officials alone.

The “extra eyes and ears,” as officials in California, Florida and Texas have called them, are essentially unarmed volunteers “maintaining an apparent police presence.”  They obviously have no official police authority, with many of them given around eight hours of training and an evasive driving course.  Their roles, essentially, are to recognize a threat, call it in to a police dispatcher, and then run.  The vicarious liability issues must be a nightmare to police administrators, even with hold-harmless agreements.

Although the proposed fence projects were authorized last October, there has been some progress without them yet being erected.  Reports show the number of people apprehended for illegally crossing our southern border is down nearly 30 percent to date in 2007.  This can realistically be attributed to targeted enforcement efforts, as well as fear and uncertainty among many of the men, women and children who have historically attempted the journey.

Clearly U.S.-Mexico border issues are of significantly more substance than just border security and prevention.  And those issues alone bring law enforcement personnel and their resources to their knees.  Practical solutions, including strategic fiscal strategies, demand an intense and acute focus.

The issue of immigration, in truth, is that the incentives are far too great to totally control or eradicate the flow of illegal immigrants seeking a better future.  As well, a major hurdle will be in addressing the status of millions of immigrants already residing in the United States.

The complex border security problem requires a commonsense approach, devoid of prejudices, misinformation and partisan politics.  We truly need a rational and logical consensus that places funding in those places where the results are proactive.

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Jerry Brewer, the Vice President of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida, is a guest columnist with MexiData.info.  He can be reached via e-mail at Cjiaincusa@aol.com.