Disparity in border security under review

By LM Otero, AP

A Customs and Border Protection officer and a local sheriff's deputy check the trunk of a car heading southbound from the United States to Mexico.

EnlargeCloseBy LM Otero, AP

A Customs and Border Protection officer and a local sheriff's deputy check the trunk of a car heading southbound from the United States to Mexico.

Some, such as an interest group on the border and some members of Congress, are questioning whether those efforts to stop illegal immigrants from entering the country have come at the expense of the U.S.'s ability to stop the drugs, guns and cash that also flow across the border.

Up to 90% of the cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana and heroin that cross from Mexico to the U.S. goes through the dozens of land ports of entry along the border, according to the Texas Border Coalition, a group of mayors, judges and city officials from the border region.

From 2006 to 2010, the number of Customs and Border Protection officers who inspect people and cargo crossing through the ports of entry along the southwest border increased by 15%, while the number of CBP Border Patrol agents who patrol the rugged terrain between those ports increased by 59%, according to CBP figures.

Some believe that focus on the regions between the ports — where human smuggling is the biggest concern — has been a knee-jerk reaction to the loud calls in recent years to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

"The emphasis has been because it's kind of sexy," says Nelson Balido, president of the Border Trade Alliance, which represents companies and government agencies all along the U.S.-Mexico border. "It's sexy to say you're the crime fighter, that you're going to go out there and secure the border and we're going to get them."

That disparity will now be reviewed by Congress.

Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., will use her House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security on Tuesday to study the distribution of manpower along the border. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, sent a letter Friday to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee asking for a hearing on the issue.

Miller says she wants to determine whether there is a shortage of funding and manpower at the ports of entry.

"It is a concern that we've all recognized," Miller says. "We'll focus on some issues that perhaps the agencies are not reacting to appropriately."

Customs officials refused requests to comment for this story.

The increase in the number of agents who patrol the mountain ranges, rivers and deserts — combined with a weakened economy that has dried up many jobs — has helped reduce the number of illegal immigrants crossing into the country. After reaching a high of 12 million in 2007, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States in 2010 was 11.2 million, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

At the land ports of entry, understaffing makes proper screening of incoming cars and trucks difficult.

"We are so understaffed that our inspectors routinely put in 16-hour days, several times a week," says William Moore, a consultant for the Texas Border Coalition.

He says drug runners in Mexico closely monitor U.S. ports of entry and understand the weaknesses. He says they rush drug shipments through during shift changes. Or they'll send a car with a small amount of drugs to get captured and then, once Customs officials pull that car out of line for further inspection, the drug runners push through several cars with larger shipments.

Some also worry about the delays that the understaffed ports of entry are having on legitimate commerce trying to get through the ports. "We have heard from southern border officials and advocates about the negative impact on border economies when delays occur at U.S. ports of entry," Cornyn wrote in his letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Janice Kephart, director of national security policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that wants to restrict immigration, says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has done a better job than her predecessors to balance the number of agents and officers working along the border. Kephart says more bodies alone won't solve the problems of human or drug smuggling.

Napolitano "is putting more bodies out there because Congress has told her to, but it is without an overall operational strategy for the border," Kephart says.

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