Border securityMore UAVs, personnel, money for U.S.-Mexico border protection

Published 25 June 2010

The Obama administration bolsters U.S.-Mexico border protection; the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved UAV flights over the Texas border from the Big Bend to the Rio Grande Valley; after Republicans in the Senate threatened to seek funds for 6,000 National Guardsmen to stop human and drug smuggling, Obama decided to deploy 1,200 Guard members in Southwest states until more Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers could be hired and trained; the president sent his $600 million funding request to Congress earlier this week to hire 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, 160 ICE agents, 20 CBP officers, and 20 new CBP canine teams

Number of CBP UAVs will be increased under administration proposal // Source: .militaryphotos.net

A second UAV to provide surveillance above Texas was part of new initiatives announced Wednesday by DHS secretary Janet Napolitano to bolster security along the U.S.-Mexico border. Napolitano said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved UAV flights over the Texas border from the Big Bend to the Rio Grande Valley to help combat smuggling of humans and contraband. “These types of flights aren’t useful everywhere, but in some places they are part of the right mix of infrastructure, manpower and technology to improve border security,” Napolitano said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “This is the case with parts of the Texas border,” she said. “We plan to move forward with using this technology there.”

San Antonio News’s Gary Martin writes that Texas elected officials long have called on the Obama administration to provide UAV surveillance along the state’s border with Mexico. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) accused the FAA of foot-dragging on the application for a Texas-based UAV and blocked Senate confirmation of

President Barack Obama’s nominee for FAA assistant administrator, Michael Huerta.

Cornyn released his hold on Huerta’s nomination Wednesday after the FAA approved the use of a second UAV in Texas by Customs and Border Protection.

Representative Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo), who has worked with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to bring the UAV to Texas, said FAA approval of the second craft “marks a critical step in securing the Texas-Mexico border.”

Martin notes that Obama called for new efforts to shore up border security last month when Republicans in the Senate threatened to seek funds for 6,000 National Guardsmen to stop human and drug smuggling. Obama instead decided to deploy 1,200 Guard members in Southwest states until more Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers could be hired and trained.

The president sent his $600 million funding request to Congress earlier this week to hire 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, 160 ICE agents, 20 Customs and Border Protection officers, and 20 new CBP canine teams.

To offset some of the costs, the president wants $100 million taken from the virtual fence program, which was halted earlier this year because of design flaws and cost overruns.

Cornyn said the administration’s efforts to secure the Southwest border “have been anemic at best.”

 

“It’s too little, really, too late,” Cornyn said.

Mexican president Felipe Calderón also called on the administration and Congress to do more to stop the flow of cash and weapons flowing from the United States to the powerful cartels blamed for most of Mexico’s ongoing violence.

Napolitano agreed that violence in Mexico, and the death of the Arizona rancher, has fueled frustration with the federal government, which has failed fully to enforce laws and provide border security. She said, though, that the Obama administration has increased the Border Patrol to more than 20,000 agents Apprehensions of undocumented immigrants are down and seizures of contraband are up, she said. “The border is more secure now than it has ever been, but we always can do more,” Napolitano said.

She said ICE, which in 2009 deported 117,000 undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes, would make a continuation of that crackdown a priority.

Martin writes that the second UAV to patrol in Texas, a Predator B aircraft, will be based at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, Napolitano said.

There are three UAVs based in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and two stationed at Grand Forks, North Dakota, for border use. The Predator B, made by General Atomics Aeronautical, cost about $4.5 million and can fly as high as commercial passenger jets for twenty hours without refueling.

The first UAV reconnaissance flights by CBP over the Texas border began June 1, flying from Arizona over El Paso to the Big Bend. The Texas flights, and all Predator flights by CBP, were suspended for a week when the remote pilot lost contact with the UAV over Santa Teresa, New Mexico, for about thirty seconds (“UAV flights along border on hold after communications failure,” 23 June 2010 HSNW). The flights resumed after additional pilot training.