Despite new technology, Border Patrol overwhelmed

By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

Across an expanse of desert where nothing marks the Mexican border
but a flimsy line of barbed wire, Border Patrol agent Mitch King
flies his helicopter low to search for signs of illegal entry into
the USA.

He spots footprints and tire tracks and hovers to get a better look.
If the sandy impressions are fresh, he'll radio agents on the ground.
But King's experienced eyes tell him these prints are at least a day
or two old. Now, they serve only as evidence that more people have
crossed the border illegally without getting caught.

More than three years after the terrorist attacks in 2001, the 11,000
men and women who serve as the border's front-line defense are
overwhelmed. Despite an influx of new technology, such as underground
sensors and cameras that pan the desert, agents catch only about one-
third of the estimated 3 million people who cross the border
illegally every year.

Most of the illegals are poor Mexican laborers looking for work. But
officials are alarmed that a growing number hail from Central and
South America, Asia, even Mideast countries such as Syria and Iran.
In 2003, the Border Patrol arrested 39,215 so-called "OTMs," or other-
than-Mexicans, along the Southwest border. In 2004, the number jumped
to 65,814.

Those figures worry intelligence and Homeland Security officials, who
say al-Qaeda leaders want to smuggle operatives and weapons of mass
destruction across the nation's porous land borders. James Loy,
deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told
Congress last week, "Several al-Qaeda leaders believe operatives can
pay their way into the country through Mexico and also believe
illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational
security reasons."

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, says
the Border Patrol has "reliable intelligence that there are
terrorists living in South America, assimilating the culture and
learning the language" in order to blend in with Mexicans crossing
the border.

"We really don't know who comes into this country illegally over the
Southwest border," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record),
D-Calif., says. "This is a big problem."

The independent 9/11 Commission's report warned in August that "the
challenge for national security in an age of terrorism is to prevent
the very few people who may pose overwhelming risks from entering or
remaining in the United States undetected." And that's a daunting
task along these stretches of border in the Southwest.

In Mitch King's territory of remote south-central New Mexico, 109
agents work a 53-mile section of border. They patrol 14,000 square
miles of rugged terrain using helicopters, horses and all-terrain and
sport-utility vehicles.

Much of the area is far out of reach of the Border Patrol's cameras
and sensors. It's easily accessible, however, to Mexicans and others
who head north illegally across miles of sand dotted with nothing but
the occasional cow or coyote. Forced east by tighter security along
the California and Arizona borders, migrants cross here on foot and
in cars, morning, noon and night - as many as 200 a day along this
relatively small stretch of land.

"It goes on all day long, 24/7," says Richard Moody, the agent in
charge of the area. His agents often work 14- to 16-hour days under
stressful conditions. Late last month, the driver of a car full of
people crossing illegally hit a Border Patrol agent with his side
mirror while trying to run him down.

The agents who work for Moody in Luna and two other New Mexico
counties caught 170 non-Mexicans in 2002, 293 in 2003 and 678 in
2004. Most are from South and Central America. But the agents also
have picked up illegal border-crossers from China, southeast Asia and
the Middle East.

Moody's agents are up against increasingly sophisticated smugglers.
Even as the Border Patrol has gotten new high-tech equipment, so have
the people they're trying to catch. Smugglers use two-way radios,
cell phones, global positioning systems and other high-tech equipment
to watch agents' movements and alert each other when the coast is
clear.

"Ten years ago, they probably could not have bought a pair of
infrared night-vision goggles on the open market, but now they can,"
says Robert Boatright, assistant chief of the Border Patrol in El
Paso. "We see them changing tactics as we change tactics."

That can be unsettling out in the desert where, unless there's a full
moon, the nights are so dark you can't see your hand in front of your
face. "We're under 24-hour surveillance by them," Moody says. "They
have a very extensive counterintelligence operation. It certainly
keeps us on our toes."

Ironically, the war on terrorism abroad has slowed the government's
ability to secure the border in some areas.

Along King's helicopter route, roughly 7 miles of the border are
marked by car barriers - 3- to 4-foot high, cement-filled pieces of
casing pipe sunk deep in concrete and set every couple of feet. The
barriers are in place mostly around the little town of Columbus, the
start of a well-traveled smuggling route north to Deming.

The Border Patrol would like the barrier extended, but the Army
engineering units and National Guard troops who did the hard work of
installing the pipes over the past two years are no longer available.

"We'd like to get the whole area done," Moody says. "But there are
two fronts in the war, and everyone's out of pocket now in Iraq
(news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites)."

Agents say new technology - remote video cameras, unmanned aerial
vehicles, more underground sensors, radiation detectors and access to
criminal databases and terrorist watch lists - has helped them do
their job.

At official ports of entry along the border and at checkpoints set up
along highways heading north, the Homeland Security Department has
stepped up security since the Sept. 11 attacks. Foreigners who need a
visa to enter the USA must be photographed, fingerprinted and checked
against terrorist watch lists. Cars and trucks are checked with dogs
and radiation-detection equipment.

As a result, those seeking illegal entry have gone elsewhere. "When
you crack down in one area, they're going to try to exploit
weaknesses in another area," Bonner says.

President Bush's proposed 2006 budget calls for more high-tech gear
for the Border Patrol, including $125 million to test and buy more
radiation detectors and $51 million to improve sensors and video
equipment.

Those who use the equipment, however, say there's also a desperate
need for more "boots on the line" to track and catch illegal
immigrants. "The technology is great, but it doesn't actually go out
and get the bodies," says Jim Stack, an agent in El Paso. "We are
extremely short-staffed."

Although the government has added about 1,300 agents to the force
since 2001, there still aren't nearly enough to patrol the 6,900
miles of border with Mexico and Canada.

Recognizing that need, Congress late last year authorized a near
doubling of the size of the agency by adding 2,000 agents a year for
the next five years. But this month, the Bush administration's budget
requested $37 million to pay for one-tenth as many agents - 210 - in
2006.

Critics are calling that a grave mistake. "Until we make the
investments necessary to protect the border, the country is seriously
at risk," says former congressman Jim Turner of Texas, who was the
top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee last year.

"The holes that remain in our border security systems are not small,"
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, says. "They are gaping, and
they are glaring to our terrorist enemies. They are coming for us."