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Heritage Fellow At The Border: With the Border Crime Unit

Posted March 24th, 2009 at 3:36pm in Ongoing Priorities, Protect America 4 Print This Post Print This Post

..."two small fixed-wings outfitted with special sensors that are invaluable for tracking down the smugglers"

My first encounter with the Pima County Border Crime Unit was meeting with Lieutenant Jeffrey Palmer who heads up the two squads that work across the county exclusively on crimes related to border smuggling. “We are learning as we go along,” Palmer told me. It is hard to do things by the book, when “there is no book.”

One thing Palmer readily acknowledges is that they could not have fielded their unit without the support of the Department of Homeland Security. Through resources provided by Homeland Security his team obtained a helicopter and two small fixed-wings outfitted with special sensors that are invaluable for tracking down the smugglers. The Border Patrol also assigned two of its agents permanently to the Border Crime Unit. These agents help out in coordinating operations, communications, and intelligence-sharing between the county and the Border Patrol.

“They make all the difference,” Palmer declares.

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James Carafano Author: James Carafano

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4 Responses to “Heritage Fellow At The Border: With the Border Crime Unit”

  1. J.C. Hughes, Texas on March 24th, 2009 at 3:36pm said:

    The Department of Homeland Security’s basic mission duplicates the Department of Defense. Utilizing military resources is an appropriate use for supporting border law enforcement. Homeland Security currently fills this logistics role with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Is there a problem with all this? Again, it’s a duplicate effort costing taxpayers additional big dollar expenditures. This new department impressed me from the start as a knee jerk reaction to 9/11. I do remain supportive of the president’s decision to move on Iraq as it was long overdue.

  2. mike baker Dallas Center on March 24th, 2009 at 3:36pm said:

    The southern border seems like a great place to train our military for desert warfare training, including cross training in civil/MP duties.

  3. Jerry, Allen, tx on March 24th, 2009 at 3:36pm said:

    I agree with both comments above, yet I hate to see our country begin to have armed troops patrolling our streets and highways. But–if you travel Interstate 10 in West Texas(near Sierra Blanca), you will find a border patrol check point with a hill behind it. Traffic may be held up for miles in one directin or the other waiting to pass through, and we only had to answer one question-”Are you a citizen?”. If we were smuggling wither drugs or aliens, they could have simply walked around the hill and met us on the other side. Surely, we can think of something better than this.

  4. Jimmy Konogeris, May (by God), Texas on March 24th, 2009 at 3:36pm said:

    Ditto!!! Ditto!! Ditto!

    LET’S PARTY: SEND SOME TEA BAGS TO WASHINGTON DC!!

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