Posted on 04/21/2010 6:53:47 PM PDT by SandRat
SIERRA VISTA — Now is the time for the federal government to step up and provide the necessary support to secure Arizona’s border with Mexico, Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever told members of Congress on Tuesday.
Speaking before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in Washington, Dever laid out the challenges facing law enforcement agencies along Arizona’s southern border.
“Today, everything is much more organized, much more dangerous and much more dire,” he said.
No longer are illegal immigrants simply flowing into the country themselves, he said.
“They’re lead by very ruthless, armed and well-equipped individuals who are prepared to do whatever necessary to protect their financial interests in their smuggling operation,” he said.
Additionally, drug smuggling organizations utilize scouts perched atop mountains and high points to guide smugglers around authorities in the area.
“That’s how they defeat the law enforcement presence, and they are very good at it,” he said.
Of the 17-members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, only Sens. McCain and Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the committee, were at the hearing.
Dever was joined by Nogales, Ariz. Mayor Octavio Garcia Von-Borstel and the U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, Dennis K. Burke.
For there to be any improvement along the border, the federal government needs to provide additional support via manpower to those federal and local agencies that are on the front lines, as well as fund improvements to inter-agency communication, Dever said.
“In our pursuit of the shooter of Rob Krentz, we had state Department of Corrections canine agents, ICE agents, sheriff’s deputies and two Border Patrol Tucson Sector representatives who couldn’t talk to each other,” he said. Without cell phone coverage and no interoperability between agency radios, the various agencies were unable to coordinate their search efforts as well as they could have.
“That’s inexcusable, and until that problem is resolved, all of our law enforcement efforts, no matter how well coordinated, are going to have a soft underbelly, and the bad guys are going to win,” he said.
Unfortunately, Dever said, because of these issues, the situation today at the border is such that, “if you want to cross the border, you will ultimately succeed, and until that changes, we’re going to continue to face the kind of conflict and confrontation and carnage that comes with it.”
During the hearing, Lieberman asked Dever about the status of the investigation into Krentz’s killing.
“We do have reason to believe that [the killer] was a scout for a drug smuggling organization,” Dever said.
Lieberman said he supports the call made by McCain and Sen. Jon Kyl, as well as other state and local officials, to send National Guard troops to Arizona to secure the border.
“This is a homeland security problem,” he said. “I don’t want to come back a year from now and hear from witnesses who I trust that things have gotten worse.”
Dever expressed concern that any additional consideration given to border security resulting from Krentz’s death would not be taken advantage of.
“When is momentum ever going to gather again? What event will it take to cause us to finally take action and bring this to a stop?” he said.
Border proposals
On Monday, Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl announced a 10-point plan for border security that called for, among other things, the immediate deployment of 3,000 National Guard troops until the governor confers with state, local and tribal law enforcement and certifies that the border is secure.
The next day, Arizona Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry Goddard announced his own suggestions for securing the border.
Goddard called for restricting the number of legal immigration during poor economic times to reduce the demand for illegal labor in the U.S., increased cooperation and training of Mexican prosecutors and making it a federal felony to enter the country illegally.
Goddard also asked that additional Border Patrol agents be trained and sent to the border.
Sending National Guard troops to the border until additional Border Patrol agents could be trained was also an option.
“We need meaningful federal border reforms, and we need them now,” he said in a statement.
Border PING
It will not happen. Hate to be negative, but either the States are going to have to do it or we are going to have to vote all these bums out. We need to get people that actually will do something. I don’t want lip service.
Year by year the willfull neglect of the Federal gov’t on the border question becomes more resolute, and just as steadily the supraState infrastructure undermining border security grows —it’s....it’s like they WANT some kind of tragedy.
Why would they WANT a tragedy? Would this serve some purpose..?
When Butch was governor, she said it was the job of the federal government. Now that she is head of Homeland Security, she’s refusing to do the job that she asked the federal government to do.
A committee of 17 and only two members in attendance is not a quorum, so anything said will pretty much be shuffled into whatever the witness forms say.
When government wants to “reform” something like immigration, it is an admission that the government is no longer capable, or willing, to enforce the current law. Reform is a bad thing.
Drug money. Money talks louder than laws to these people.
Goddard called for restricting the number of legal immigration during poor economic times to reduce the demand for illegal labor in the U.S., increased cooperation and training of Mexican prosecutors and making it a federal felony to enter the country illegally.
Goddard also asked that additional Border Patrol agents be trained and sent to the border.
Sending National Guard troops to the border until additional Border Patrol agents could be trained was also an option.
“We need meaningful federal border reforms, and we need them now,” he said in a statement.
Then why are you asking for meaningless changes.
Making it a federal felony to enter the country illegally is not going to deter drug gang members who are willing to kill ranchers from entering the country. The federal and state prisons would fill up quickly and then you would end up deporting all but the worst offenders anyway.
How exactly are you going to restrict the number of legal immigration during poor economic times to reduce the demand for illegal labor in the U.S. if you can not control the border?
Without a substantial physical barrier at the border we have no chance of restricting illegal immigration. Laws are useless if the potential rewards are substantial enough to those willing to break them.
The rewards are too great and the poverty to seveer in Mexico and South America to use laws to dissuade illegal immigration across the southern border. We must have a multiple layered robust physical barrier.
“They’re lead by very ruthless, armed and well-equipped individuals who are prepared to do whatever necessary to protect their financial interests in their smuggling operation,”
Yea, the US f**king government!
Unless I am mistaken, the Governor of a state has the authority to call up the National Guard. Why don’t they just do it, and screw the Feds?
Ping!
If the Feds call them up, they pay the costs.
This is a voice to be heeded - another Watchman On The Wall.
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