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.
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.
The southern border seems like a great place to train our military for desert warfare training, including cross training in civil/MP duties.
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.
Ditto!!! Ditto!! Ditto!
LET'S PARTY: SEND SOME TEA BAGS TO WASHINGTON DC!!
We need drones air power here in AZ lots of them.
They are the eye in the sky for our overworked,under staffed border agents.
Currently reported by the PHX news and the Border Patrol
the drugs cartels are now using their own drones planes
dropping their drug bails on the AZ side in isloated areas of the desert.
But "The Man" and his followers in D.C has told us here
"we have no problem with your Border in AZ"
To add insult we have to witness MX Pres. Calderon weeping into the camera also admitting that 22,000 of his citizens have to date
been systemactically mudered on the border areas
as the cartels kill for control of the transfer points. and….
Do you Gingo's
have more of those Americana dollas that you have gifted to us while
you irgore your rown citizens and the safety and security in the USA.
James H.F.
Why have you not reported the list of countries interdicted by the border patrol with terrorist ties?