Border residents in New Mexico say it’s time to build President Trump’s border wall, and told the Washington Examiner in a series of interviews last month that Democrats who oppose a border wall aren’t seeing the growing crisis in their state.
“These politicians are playing a game of chicken with our safety,” Kris Massey, a farmer in Animas, N.M., told the Washington Examiner about the need for a wall.
Six residents in Hidalgo County, N.M., listed four main reasons why they want a border wall.
Law enforcement officials are too far away
In some cases, the nearest border official or law enforcement station is too far away from the border to offer any immediate help if illegal immigrants cross into the U.S. and onto their property.
Tricia Elbrock, a resident of Hidalgo County, lives about 40 miles from the closest police station. Massey of Animas said those kinds of distances between those outposts and remote sectors of the border can make it difficult to patrol.
“When your station is out of Lordsburg, N.M., which is 95 miles to get down here to the border, even if you have a 100,000 sensors, now you have an hour and a half drive to get down there,” said Massey.
By the time officers get to work and drive an hour or more to a location, “they patrol for four hours” before having to return.
Crises on the border have spread the border patrol too thin
Elbrock said she’s been told the appearance of thousands of migrants in Antelope Wells, N.M., since October have forced Border Patrol officers to head for other sectors, which leave more remote spots unprotected. County officials confirmed that problem to the Washington Examiner.
The massive groups of migrants, from 100 to 300 people each, getting dropped off on the Mexico side and climbing over the barbed wire and vehicle barriers became a bigger problem for the county in late November, when many of those being apprehended were sick and in need of medical help beyond what agents could render.
Border Patrol agents have documented in statements that two, three, or four agents would be called to take in a group of hundreds to the closest Border Patrol station 95 miles to the north.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Warren Walter said his understaffed team was especially depleted at night when residents might need help, but the patrol was busy for hours responding to large groups.
“Sometimes there’s no Border Patrol working in a certain area because they’re all transferred over to where the large group is to help transfer them, so basically it leaves the whole county open … sometimes it sounds like the Border Patrol has a lot of employees, but really, do they?” he said. “They’re not set up for this, they’re making adjustments to try and accommodate the situation themselves.”
The barbed-wire fence isn’t working
The majority of the border in southwestern New Mexico consists of barbed-wire fencing.
One rancher, who asked to remain anonymous, owns 60 miles of land adjacent to the border. He flies his small plane over the international boundary weekly to see which spots of the fence need to be patched up because smugglers have cut the wire to get vehicles through.
The rancher said an 18-foot-tall steel barrier would likely cut down on the illegal traffic.
“That’s why some of those caravan people come through this way,” Elbrock agreed. “This is pretty porous area. They think, ‘We can get through here.’”
A wall could also help funnel illegal immigrants to areas that are more likely to be staffed with border officers.
“We just need a border fence so that they’re not having to dick around, doing stuff that they shouldn’t have to be doing, trying to track people 60-70 miles in the country. Let’s stop ’em at the border,” said Massey. “It’s never gonna stop 100 percent, but it’s a helluva lot harder to tunnel 100 yards than it is to walk.”
Technology can only do so much
While technology such as drones, sensors, and cameras might alert officials to the presence of illegal immigrants and smugglers, it would still tax manpower resources, and officials may not be able to arrive in time.
Currently, military personnel stationed on the border are watching technological monitors and informing agents when one is triggered. The military is helping because the patrol lacks the manpower to both watch cameras and deploy agents to respond.
A related problem is that technology has to be mounted on something solid, and barbed-wire fencing isn’t strong or tall enough to mount cameras in some cases. That hurts Border Patrol’s ability to adequately monitor remote miles of land.
Billy Darnell, the former sheriff of Hidalgo County, said the cartels are working with better equipment than the patrol. He and said they have separately found satellite phones, telescopes, cellphones, and assault rifles in the hills on each of their properties — an indication smugglers are serious about outsmarting law enforcement.
He’s also found other telltale signs of smugglers.
“The last couple of years that we own some of this mountain country up here, and there’s smuggling trails, and we found these little brown bottles with black caps, and there’s meth in there,” he said. “I’ve turned several of them over to Border Patrol … these people are tough that are smuggling.”
