Successful border program ensures consequences

Published 10 February 2011

A new immigration policy will end voluntary deportations; Border Patrol agents will no longer be busing illegal immigrants to the border and then walking them to where they crossed so they can return to Mexico; “No mas,” said Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) commissioner Alan Bersin; “No more returns without consequences.”

Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) commissioner Alan Bersin announced a new immigration policy ending voluntary deportations. Border Patrol agents will no longer be bussing illegal immigrants to the border and then walking them to where they crossed so they can return to Mexico.

“No mas,” said Bersin. “No more returns without consequences.”

The change in enforcement comes from a policy titled Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats (ACTT), a collaborative enforcement effort that includes over sixty federal, state, local, and tribal agencies in Arizona and the government of Mexico. The policy encourages agencies to work together to combat people, gun, and drug smuggling organizations operating in the Arizona corridor.

And let the word go out foreign-wide that illegal activity, illegal crossing will not be tolerated in Arizona,” said Bersin.

Since the policy’s inception in September 2009, ACTT agencies have seized 1.6 million pounds of marijuana, 3,800 pounds of cocaine, and 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine. The seizure of $13 million in undeclared U.S. currency, 268 weapons, 270,000 illegal immigrants arrested between ports of entry (of which 14,000 had criminal records) were also among noteworthy metrics.

DHS formed ACTT to improve communications and to share intelligence, but officials kept quiet about the program until the feds could prove its success.

According to DHS, illegal immigrants that attempt to cross the border will be facing consequences from this point on. First time arrestees will be charged with a misdemeanor for illegal entry and will then be transported to an area far from where they crossed. Second timers will face illegal re-entry charges, a felony that carries a prison sentence between six months and two years.

 

In the coming months, DHS will deploy additional operating bases to expand its field operations and lessening drive times for agents posted in remote areas. Bersin said DHS is currently working with the Tohono O’Odham tribe to possibly locate one of its bases on tribal land that shares seventy miles of border with Mexico.