I recently returned from my eighth trip to our southern border with Mexico. On this trip, I participated in a field event with members of Arizona Border Recon in southwest Arizona, near the Port of Entry town of Sasabe, Arizona, 70 miles southwest of Tucson.
About two dozen participants, some from California and Kansas, gathered at a base camp 7 miles out in the desert and fanned out to various observation posts to report any illegal activity to the Border Patrol. I pulled a daytime and a nighttime shift. Fortunately, the weeklong exercise ended a day earlier than scheduled, so I “missed” a nighttime shift when the temperature got down to 29 degrees Fahrenheit — colder than when I left Maine the week before.
We covered a 15-mile area, and the exercise was deemed a success, as the purpose was to “block” or prevent illegal activity in that area, which is what we accomplished — except for one incident, in which we encountered a group of about 15 illegal aliens, who quickly scattered in all directions.
Whatever success we have in assisting the Border Patrol is just a small fraction of what could and should be done. The Border Patrol has significant assets, with helicopters, virtual fences (camera and radar towers), electronic sensing devices, all-terrain vehicles, drones, airplane patrols, horse patrols in some areas, observation towers, night vision scopes, radio communication, highway checkpoints, transport vehicles and the ubiquitous green-striped trucks that patrol the highways and dirt roads of the desert.
They could and should be better utilized.
Tim Foley, the field operations director of Arizona Border Recon, summed it up on my trip there two years ago when we were standing at the border fence. I asked Foley: “Why the hell aren’t we stopping everyone?” His reply: “We are fighting a war with a shift mentality.” He was referring specifically to the Border Patrol shift changes that leave the desert areas uncovered for an hour to an hour-and-a-half. The drug cartel “scouts,” however, stay on the mountaintops 24/7 and let the cartels on the other side of the border know when the way is clear to send over illegal aliens and drugs.
Our “open borders,” however, are the direct result of Department of Homeland Security policies that prevent the Border Patrol agents from doing the jobs they want to do, and the most egregious of these is the “catch and release” policy. Under this policy, illegal aliens are simply let go after initial apprehension and inspection.
Prior to this, they would be given a “notice to appear,” which required a court appearance at which time their cases would be adjudicated. Even this was a joke, as 40 percent simply did not show up.
“Catch and release” removed any pretense that the Obama administration is trying to secure the border. This was confirmed in the remarks of Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, at a congressional committee hearing where he stated that he was told by Alejandro Mayorkas, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that Border Patrol agents have been instructed to forego the “notice to appear” and just to let illegal aliens go.
What truly concerns me and fuels my disdain for the Washington, D.C., establishment — which includes advocates, lobbyists and the politicians (Maine’s congressional delegation included) — is the continuing flow of drugs coming into our country.
In the last year, we have seen story after story here in Maine about drug overdoses. Securing our borders will certainly not stop the drugs flowing into the country and our communities, but it will certainly help.
In my view, nothing matters until we secure our borders.
Bob Casimiro of Bridgton is former executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform.