Reportaje del Washington Post

Para Obama, el muro fronterizo no es prioritario, concluyen en EU

Construirá EU apenas kilómetro y medio más de valla en sus límites, señal de la cautela con que se ve la medida, dice The Washington Post

Notimex

WASHINGTON, 30 de diciembre.- Estados Unidos planea construir apenas 1.6 kilómetros de barda adicional a los mil 038 kilómetros que se levantan en su frontera con México, reveló hoy el diario The Washington Post.

Los planes de la Patrulla Fronteriza parecen reflejar la cauta política de la administración del presidente Barack Obama sobre la efectividad de cercar una mayor extensión de su frontera de casi dos mil kilómetros con su vecino del sur.

Aunque cifras oficiales sugieren que la presencia de bardas en algunas porciones de la frontera no ha detenido los cruces ilegales y el tráfico de drogas, los promotores de esta idea insisten en su efectividad.

El diario recordó que el mismo presidente Obama ha dicho que ni siquiera la construcción de una fosa plagada con cocodrilos dejará satisfechos a los críticos de su gobierno.

Algunos como el ex gobernador de Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, han ofrecido cercar la totalidad de la frontera con México en tanto que su rival Newt Gingrich ha prometido construir una barda doble.

Agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza reconocen que aunque la barda que se levanta en algunas partes ha sido exitosa en detener el paso de vehículos, ese no ha sido el caso con los cruces de inmigrantes y drogas.

'Sin la barda no tendríamos tanto tiempo (para atacar estos cruces), pero su mera existencia no se va a traducir en seguridad fronteriza', dijo el agente especial Jonathan Creiglow, del sector El Centro en California.

A su efectividad se suman los costos, un aspecto contencioso en momentos en que el debate político en Washington gira en torno a la imperiosa necesidad de reducir el gasto y el déficit presupuestario.

|De acuerdo con la Oficina de Contabilidad del Gobierno (GAO), mantener los mil 038 kilómetros actuales de barda representarán un gasto de 6.5 mil millones de dólares durante los próximos 20 años.

Tan sólo en el año fiscal 2010 se registraron cuatro mil 037 instancias en que la barda fue dañada, a un costo promedio de mil 800 dólares por cada reparación, según cifras del Departamento de Seguridad Interna (DHS).

"Creo que la pregunta es qué estamos tratando de lograr (frente a quienes proponen levantar esta barda en otras zonas)', dijo Thad Bingle, quien fue jefe de Personal de la Patrulla Fronteriza de 2007 a 2009.

New fencing doesn’t stop illegal crossings
By Nick Miroff, Friday, December 30, 5:17 AM
CALEXICO, Calif. — A decade ago, when illegal immigration from Mexico was at an all-time high, this stretch of border was as good a place as any to sneak into the United States.

Migrants and smugglers could slip through the alfalfa fields outside town or plow their pickup trucks through the desert, where the biggest worries were stuck tires and getting safely across the irrigation canals.

But in the past five years, the international border here has become a harder, tougher, taller barrier — an American Great Wall. Miles of steel fencing now ride the desolate sand dunes west of Calexico, and to the east, giant jack-shaped “Normandy” barriers block off old smuggling routes, named for their resemblance to the defenses that once lined the beaches of northern France in World War II.

Overall, the United States has added 413 miles of new fencing to its southern boundary since 2006, raising to 649 miles the total length of border that has some form of man-made barrier to people or vehicles. The Rio Grande creates a natural partition along another 1,252 miles, and the government has been putting new fencing there, too.

Now the question is: How much more should be built?

Border Patrol officials say their current plans are to construct just one more mile of fence, in Texas. But as illegal immigration takes an increasingly central role in Republican campaign debates, several GOP candidates have renewed calls to fence the entire 1,969-mile boundary.

President Obama has made light of such proposals, saying fence advocates won’t be satisfied until the U.S. builds “a moat” stocked with “alligators.” But leading Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have vowed to barricade the entire U.S.-Mexico divide, with Gingrich signing a pledge to install a “double fence” while campaigning in Iowa earlier this month.

With such an endeavor projected to cost tens of billions of dollars, this stretch of California desert might be as good a place as any to assess how the existing border fence actually works.

The new barriers have been particularly effective at stopping vehicles from coming across, Border Patrol agents say. Along one stretch of desert here, the number of drive-through incursions plunged from 350 in 2007 to four so far this year.

But agents also say it is not the case that smugglers and illegal migrants on foot simply go to the place in the desert where the fence ends, and walk around it.

“Anywhere is a good place to sneak across if we’re not watching,” said Special Agent Jonathan Creiglow, a Border Patrol officer assigned to the agency’s El Centro sector here.

But there are also sections of 18-foot fencing right in the middle of downtown Calexico, opposite its sprawling sister city of Mexicali, where border jumpers can be up and over the wall in a matter of seconds, melting into shops and residential streets once they land on the other side.

At night, smugglers toss Hail Marys of pot-stuffed footballs and fling golf-ball-sized heroin nuggets over to waiting receivers. Stealthy ultra-light aircraft bomb the lettuce fields outside town with bundles of dope, then swoop back into Mexico, well below radar but high above the fence.

Then there are rugged sections in the desert where fencing is porous or nonexistent, but crossings rare. And those who do try to slip through are tracked by the Border Patrol’s growing array of sensors, high-powered night-vision cameras and surveillance drones.

In short, agents say, fencing is a tool and a first line of defense, but it does not bestow border security by its mere existence. “Without the fencing we wouldn’t have as much time, but nothing is going to stop them from going over or cutting through it,” explained Creiglow, who, at 26, is one of the many recent hires at the Border Patrol, which has doubled in size since 2002, with 18,500 of its 21,500 agents now deployed along the U.S.-Mexico frontier.

A costly barrier

Most of the barrier does not sit on the actual international boundary, but slightly north of it, allowing maintenance workers to access both sides without technically crossing into Mexico. Upkeep for the existing 649 miles of fencing is projected to cost $6.5 billion over the next 20 years, according to a 2009 report by the Government Accounting Office, and U.S. Homeland Security officials say the fence was breached 4,037 times in the government’s 2010 fiscal year, at an average cost of $1,800 per repair.

With most of the remaining unfenced stretch of border in Texas, the debate has shifted to the question of walling off the Rio Grande. Even in areas where the river can be shallow enough to wade across, putting a fence along the river’s sinuous levees is both costly and unpopular with local ranchers who want to preserve riparian access for thirsty cattle.

In Arizona, where Border Patrol agents catch more illegal migrants than anywhere else, lawmakers are soliciting public donations to put barriers along the remaining unfenced 82 miles of the state’s 370-mile boundary with Mexico. Such a structure would need to climb up and over steep mountain areas where construction costs are exorbitant and the deterrent value is questionable, enforcement experts say.

“I think the question is: What are you trying to achieve? Just to be able to say that you built a fence on top of a mountain?” said Thad Bingle, who was the Border Patrol’s chief of staff from 2007 to 2009. “If someone climbs 10,000 feet to the top of a mountain they aren’t going to be deterred by a 10-foot fence.”

Construction in rugged areas is made even more pricey because every stretch of new fence needs an accompanying road for maintenance and patrols, he added.

Fewer arrests

While the agency tallies the number of migrants it catches, it does not plot the locations of those apprehensions. But after hitting an all-time high of 1.6 million apprehensions in the government’s 2000 fiscal year, the number of arrests dropped to 327,577 in the 2011 period which ended Sept. 30, the lowest level since 1972.

Migration experts attribute the decline primarily to the weak U.S. job market — especially the lack of construction jobs — as well as growing fears of kidnapping gangs in northern Mexico. At the same time, average family sizes have fallen dramatically in Mexico, employment opportunities have improved, and the United States is letting more Mexicans in through the front door.

Mexican workers received 516,000 temporary work visas in 2010, “the highest number since the Bracero Program of the late 1950s,” said Douglas Massey, an expert on Mexican migration at Princeton University.

Tougher enforcement on the U.S. side has also been a factor, driving up the costs of getting across as well as the difficultly. But migrant smugglers on the Mexico side say the fence is hardly their biggest concern.

“There’s too much surveillance now,” said Luis, a husky guide-for-hire known as a pollero, standing in the Niños Heroes park in downtown Mexicali, where recent deportees and would-be border crossers gather. “The Migra [Border Patrol] has cameras everywhere,” he said.

Luis wouldn’t give his last name, but he said for $500 smugglers will get customers over the fence by creating elaborate diversions for the Border Patrol and deploying teams of helpers with roll-up ladders and ropes, even forming cheerleader-style human pyramids Better yet, Luis said, for $3,000 a guide will take you over the fence and through the desert at night, and $6,000 buys a legitimate U.S. visa rented from a look-alike with legal status.

“There’s always a way in,” he said with a wily grin.


National Guard at border to be cut to fewer than 300, cost about $60 million for 2012
By Associated Press, Published: December 20

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will keep a reduced contingent of National Guard troops working along the Mexican border for the next year, the Defense Department said Tuesday.

Starting in January, the force of 1,200 National Guard troops at the border will be reduced to fewer than 300 at a cost of about $60 million, said Paul Stockton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense.

The remaining troops will shift their focus from patrolling the border on the ground looking for illegal immigrants and smugglers to aerial surveillance missions using military helicopters and airplanes equipped with high-tech radar and other gear. Exactly where those troops will fly or how many aircraft will be used has not been decided, he said.

“We are basically going from boots on the ground to boots in the air,” said David Aguilar, deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Protection.

Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher said his agency is working on identifying the “areas of greatest concern” along the border — areas that include Arizona and South Texas — and will station troops and aircraft accordingly.

President Barack Obama ordered a second round of Guard troops to the border last year, with the first of those troops arriving in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in August 2010. President George W. Bush first ordered Guard troops to the southern from 2006 to 2008. They were supposed to be in place for about a year but Obama extended the deployment earlier this year. The smaller force is now expected to remain until the end of 2012.

Stockton said the remaining troops are “transitioning to much more effective support.”

“This provides us with more flexibility in dealing with the persistent challenges posed by cross-border movement and illegal crossings,” Stockton said.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon has previously spent about $1.35 billion for the deployments under Bush and Obama.

Stockton said the Pentagon has budgeted about $60 million for the mission in 2012.

Congressional Republicans have objected to reducing the number of troops, arguing that the border isn’t secure and reducing the number of people patrolling the area doesn’t help security.

“If the Obama administration’s goal is border security, their actions undermine their objective,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “The administration’s decision to draw down the National Guard troops along the U.S-Mexico border makes an already porous border worse.”

Aguilar, who previously led the Border Patrol, said Tuesday there is still work to be done at the border but that successes in securing the frontier have allowed DHS to reduce the number of troops and change the mission.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 Border Patrol agents at the southern border made 327,577 arrests, the fewest since 1972. There are also more than 18,500 agents patrolling the border, the highest number in the agency’s history.

When Bush first deployed the National Guard, there were just over 11,000 Border Patrol agents in the area who made more than one million arrests.