On the Line

Border control agencies confront disgruntled citizens, vast open spaces, counterproductive policies and scarce resources in the Southwest.

Joe Sampino salutes the Arizona desert sunset with a swipe at the sweat under his cowboy hat at the end of another 80-degree day. He folds his arms and squints at Mexico, about 100 yards away. It's mid-April. The former police officer from upstate New York is one of about 1,000 U.S. citizens who came to Arizona to participate in the Minuteman Project, an all-volunteer effort that set up camps along 26 miles of this border to observe and report illegal immigration.

Sampino's camp, one of about two dozen, is along Border Road, a dusty, winding, red dirt path west of Douglas, a town of 14,000 about 100 miles south of Tucson. The road cuts through one of the most heavily traversed corridors that undocumented migrants use to sneak into the United States. In this part of the endless rocky desert, the two countries are separated only by a feeble, rusting, and in some places, broken barbed-wire fence.

Sampino says he felt compelled to join the Minuteman Project although he had never done anything like it before. He believes illegal immigration is out of control.

"I don't want to be here," he says. "The only reason I'm here is because the government has refused to do the job that we asked them to do and that they're required to do under the Constitution."

James Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, says U.S. citizens are going to carry out a "bloodless revolution" to seal the borders. During their monthlong stay on the border in April, Minuteman volunteers reported activity to the Border Patrol, but were not permitted by project organizers to make contact with illegal immigrants. Organizers say the effort helped the Border Patrol catch 349 border-crossers. They say their camps deterred countless others, proving that a large enough presence along the border can stop illegal activity. Thus emboldened, organizers plan to set up camp in other border states, both southern and northern.

The project was spawned by supporters' rising frustration with Congress and the Bush administration. They say enforcement of border and immigration laws is lax at best, even since the Sept. 11 attacks. They point to the huge number of illegal immigrants living in the United States. The Pew Hispanic Center, a private research group, puts the total at 10.3 million. Others say it's more than 20 million. The Homeland Security Department does not give an estimate.

Border residents like James Earley say change is badly needed. Earley runs the Huachuca Oaks Baptist Camp in Hereford, Ariz. Like other border residents, he says illegal immigrants have damaged his property and driven up his insurance rates. Earley hopes that the Minuteman Project will convince the government to take action.

Today, for the first time, one department oversees all the nation's borders. Homeland Security, created in March 2003, is home to the bureaus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and of Custom and Border Protection, both responsible for immigration enforcement. ICE handles enforcement and criminal investigations inside the country. CBP oversees land, sea and air ports of entry. CBP's Border Patrol protects the land between ports of entry. It was transferred to CBP when the Immigration and Naturalization Service was dismantled and merged into DHS.

But just two years after DHS took shape, many inside and outside government are taking stock and suggesting a shake-up is needed, that perhaps CBP and ICE need to be merged. Some lawmakers, policymakers and federal law en-forcement officials say an enforcement approach may no longer work. They argue that fundamental immigration policy changes are needed, such as a guest-worker program that legally recognizes migrants who come to work and pose no threat. For all the talk about terrorism, the majority of people apprehended by the Border Patrol on a daily base still are poor migrants in search of work.

Catching Felipe

About 2,300 miles from DHS headquarters and the squabbles over its future in Washington, José Maheda guards the southern border. He is one of about 2,300 Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector, a 260-mile stretch from Western Arizona to Douglas.

Of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants the Border Patrol picked up in fiscal 2004, about 500,000 were caught in the Tucson Sector, the highest number on any border. That's up from 350,000 in 2003. Violent confrontations between agents and drug runners and immigrant smugglers have reached record levels. During the first half of fiscal 2005, the sector recorded 132 assaults on agents, including 15 shootings. In fiscal 2004, there were 118.

The agent hides his irritation when a reporter spills a drink in his new white and green Border Patrol Ford Expedition as they buck and skid along the roads outside Nogales. A town of 28,000, about 70 miles south of Tucson, Nogales straddles the border. Maheda points to a well-worn trail that migrants follow on the trek north. Many such routes are known and patrolled, but migrants just keep coming, Maheda says. Off in the desert distance, agents rove on foot. Mobile camera units with sensors and night-vision technology send images back to central command at the Nogales Border Patrol station. Chatter crackles across the radio all morning, reporting sightings of illegal migrants and, in a few cases, apprehensions.

The U.S. side of Nogales is a mecca for Mexicans living nearby. Every day, thousands use their border-crossing credentials-credit-card-sized identifiers containing biometric information-to legally cross in search of bargains at the many local thrift stores. On the Mexican side, about 333,000 people live in tin-roofed shanties squeezed next to each other along narrow dirt roads. The two towns are separated by a 15-foot-high fence made of corrugated scrap metal the Army used during the Vietnam War. It runs for about four miles before shrinking away on each end into barbed wire strung between rusty metal poles among desert brambles.

Agents have caught a Mexican national trying to cross illegally not far from the Nogales port. He identifies himself only as Felipe. From here, he'll be taken back to the Nogales station, where a Border Patrol agent will take a full set of fingerprints and a photo and query the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System to see whether Felipe has a criminal record. If agents want to do a more extensive search, they can contact CBP's National Targeting Center in Washington. It is staffed around-the-clock with CBP officers and analysts who can pull information from sources such as the National Counterterrorism Center.

When the Border Patrol was part of INS, agents only took one fingerprint and checked border-crossers' identities against the INS' Automated Biometrics Identification System, or IDENT. It provided only immigration histories, not criminal background data. Maheda says one of the biggest advantages to becoming part of Homeland Security has been the ability to run biometric checks and to tap intelligence databases. Illegal entrants found to have criminal records, deemed to be threats, or coming from countries other than Mexico, are turned over to ICE for processing. "Other Than Mexican" is a small but growing group. The category includes immigrants from any other country, but in fiscal 2004, the majority came from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

The Border Patrol predicts it will catch about 150,000 OTMs by the end of this fiscal year, a 200 percent increase over 2004. That's about 12 percent of all apprehensions. Most OTMs are caught on the southern border.

Felipe doesn't seem like a criminal or a threat or a terrorist. He says he came into the country to find work, nothing more. If he lacks a criminal record and a history of prior attempts to enter the United States illegally, he'll get a ride back to the border and will be dropped off on the Mexican side within four hours. He won't be fined. When asked if he'll try to slip into the country again, Felipe gives a wide grin and says, "Perhaps."

With 10,800 agents, the Border Patrol is responsible for about 7,000 miles of U.S. borders. The majority of agents-about 9,700-patrol the border with Mexico. About 1,000 are along the northern border. CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner readily admits the Border Patrol does not have what it calls "operational control" over all border areas. The agency is doing everything it can with the resources it has, he says, but changes in national policy would be a big help.

'Mindless Cycle'

According to Bonner, most people illegally crossing the southern border are economic migrants from Mexico seeking work. He says a temporary guest-worker program would give them a legal way to enter the country, and would allow the Border Patrol to focus on catching criminals and those who mean to do the country harm. President Bush proposed such a program a year-and-a-half ago, but it has languished in Congress. Many congressional Republicans have been opposed to such a guest-worker program, arguing that it would give amnesty to illegal immigrants already in the country.

The country also needs beefed-up sanctions for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers, Bonner says. A former U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bonner says current laws are "totally inadequate." According to ICE, which is responsible for enforcing immigration-related work site laws, the number of sanctions issued to employers hiring illegal immigrants is falling. In 2000, nearly 500 were issued; in 2004, only 54. In March, however, ICE reached the largest civil settlement ever in a case involving the alleged hiring of undocumented workers. Under the settlement, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., agreed to pay $11 million and implement an unprecedented compliance and training program, including a commitment never to employ illegal aliens.

"It shows we're going after bigger, bigger money," says ICE spokesman Manny Van Pelt. "We may have smaller investigations, but we're going for a larger breadth of investigations and bigger civil settlements and criminal fines." Work site cases can take years to develop, he says, because ICE isn't looking for just immigration violations. The agency often is trying to ferret out more serious criminal offenses, such as money laundering, human smuggling and potential terrorism. "It's a whole new way of doing business," adds Van Pelt.

Bonner complains about other federal policies he says are counterproductive, such as releasing illegal immigrants into the United States after they've been caught. ICE is required by law to release migrants if they do not have felony convictions and are not deemed to be a threat to national security. They get a notice to appear in court-Border Patrol agents call it a "notice to disappear." Some are required to participate in alternatives to detention, such as electronic monitoring, telephone check-ins or regular meetings with ICE officials. Currently, more than a million illegal aliens have been issued notices to appear in court and have been released into the country on their own recognizance. There are about 465,000 illegal immigrants in the country who have failed to show up for hearings, of which about 85,000 have criminal records.

"We're releasing people," Bonner says. "You tell me that's not invitational. I can tell you that when you do that, the message goes down to El Salvador, to Brazil-frankly to China-that if you get across the border, surrender yourself to the Border Patrol because you're going to be released, you're going to get walking papers. It's a mindless cycle, and we need to break it."

But ICE couldn't hold everybody if it wanted to. The agency's Office of Detention and Removal has space for only 22,000 detainees. "The reality is you cannot lock up every single person who comes across the border illegally because the system was not set up that way," Van Pelt says. "The reality is there isn't enough prison space in the United States."

Overwhelmed

Regardless of what happens with national policy, Bonner says the Border Patrol needs more resources and personnel. "We're over- whelmed," he says. "There are not enough Border Patrol agents; there's not enough detection technology to determine when somebody's intruded and then to respond to that and make apprehensions."

Acting on recommendations from the 9/11 commission, Congress authorized the hiring of 2,000 more Border Patrol agents with the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. The Bush administration's fiscal 2006 budget, however, requested funding for only 210. Lawmakers then funded 1,500 additional agents through the emergency supplemental appropriation in early May for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the House-approved 2006 DHS appropriation. The Senate has yet to approve an appropriation measure for the department.

Bonner has worked up the number of new agents the force needs. He declines to disclose it publicly, pending vetting by DHS. But he cautions that hiring 2,000 more agents in one year probably would push the agency to its training and management limits.

The Border Patrol's new national strategy, released in late March without much fanfare, calls for a mix of personnel, technology and infrastructure to secure the borders. Officials said the 21-page document simply puts into words what the Border Patrol already has been doing. It does not give timelines or other significant milestones to measure success. Indeed, it says there is no one way to measure the effectiveness of CBP's efforts to combat terrorism.

Bonner says the Border Patrol needs to build up a rapid-response capability so agents can be deployed immediately to hot areas. Ideally, detection technology would warn of illegal activity along the border and mobile agents would be deployed. "We have to be more mobile than the Border Patrol has ever been before," Bonner says. "The faster you can move, the fewer agents you actually need to achieve control." The agency has about 400 specialized agents who can rapidly deploy now, but Bonner says more are needed. He estimates that if the Border Patrol relied on personnel alone, it would need up to 50,000 agents to guard U.S. borders.

Many officials say border security has improved since 9/11. For example, CBP officials have more technology than ever. At the ports of entry, officers have personal radiation detectors. Truck cargo is scanned with new X-ray and gamma-imaging systems. A new computer system called US VISIT allows CBP officers to run a biometric identity check on visitors coming through the ports with nonimmigrant visas. The system takes fingerprints and a facial photograph and runs a check against national databases to determine whether the visitor has a criminal record or a warrant for arrest. To date, US VISIT has helped the U.S. government catch about 600 people with invalid visas or outstanding warrants. The Border Patrol also has added cameras and sensors along the Mexican and Canadian borders since 1997, and last year, tested unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the Arizona border. DHS plans to make UAVs a permanent feature along the border this fall. CBP officers and Border Patrol agents also have access to the National Targeting Center, which allows them to tap multiple national databases and share intelligence.

Nevertheless, technology is not being put to full use. US VISIT is used during secondary inspections at land ports of entry. Only about 2 percent of people entering land ports are referred for secondary screening. During primary inspection, CBP officers check visitors against the old INS IDENT database, which does not contain as much information as the FBI fingerprint ID database used by the Border Patrol.

Morale problems also dog immigration enforcement. The House Appropriations Committee underscored problems be-tween ICE and CBP agents in language it attached to the 2006 DHS appropriation, which was approved by the House in May. "The committee has learned that there is a frequent lack of communication between CBP and ICE, and is concerned that the concept of operations between these two critical agencies is inadequately defined," the report stated.

Citing its 2004 survey of 500 border and customs agents, the American Federation of Government Employees says most are demoralized and not getting the tools, training and support they need. CBP said the survey was not a representative sample of the agency's overall workforce.

Force Multiplier

The flow of illegal immigration gradually has moved east along the southern border. San Diego used to hold the title for immigrants captured. After the government cracked down there with Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, the flow moved eastward to Arizona. In 1995, the Border Patrol nabbed about 525,000 undocumented migrants in San Diego; the number fell to about 139,000 last year. Conversely, apprehensions have spiked in the Tucson Sector. In 1995, 220,000 were caught in the sector; in 2000, the number was more than 600,000.

Narcotics smuggling, especially co-caine, also is on the rise. In 2003, agents seized about 115 pounds of cocaine in the Tucson area; from October 2004 to May 2005, they intercepted 1,600 pounds.

Bonner says that until last year, Arizona was the weakest area on the border. The West Desert region, in particular, had few resources for detecting attempts at entry or smuggling. In response, CBP launched the Arizona Border Control Initiative in 2004. The second phase began in March. It will add 534 agents and more than double the aircraft in the region to 54 by the end of the year.

Michael Nicely, Tucson Sector's Border Patrol chief, views the initiative as DHS' first real muscle-flexing on border security. Nicely, a 25-year Border Patrol veteran, has watched Operation Gatekeeper closely. "The easy avenues of ingress are being systematically taken away," he says. "If you look at a place like San Diego, where the border works and the border is secure, that's what we're going to replicate here in Arizona. And I think it's going to happen. It's not if, it's when."

But Nicely also expects the number of confrontations between agents and smugglers to increase as more pressure is applied. There's also the risk that illegal activity simply will slide east again, as it did from San Diego to Tucson. The eastern Arizona corridor between Nogales and Douglas should be on the lookout. Bonner predicts the flow will pick up there soon.

Meanwhile, some experts have proposed that DHS undergo significant structural change. In December, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan public policy organization based in Washington, and the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based research and educational institute, released a report recommending that ICE and CBP be merged. Janice Kephart, who served as counsel to the 9/11 commission and is the author of a staff report on terrorist travel, told Congress that a new Department of Immigration and Border Protection should be created. She says border security remains "woefully inadequate" and gets shortchanged compared with other priorities within DHS.

Minuteman Project organizers are trying to start a national movement. They plan to establish citizen camps in all southern border states and some along the Canadian border by the fall. They want to hire investigators and former immigration officials to find employers who hire illegal immigrants and picket them. Camps will remain open until the government orders the military or National Guard to secure the borders, they say. Organizers also seek a 400 percent budget increase for ICE and CBP.

Although CBP initially criticized the project, Bonner told lawmakers in May that the agency is evaluating whether it can make effective use of volunteer citizen patrols: "We want any kind of force multiplier we can get."