Arizona sheriff accuses Border Patrol of suppressing arrest figures

A sheriff in Arizona has accused U.S. Border Patrol officials of instructing local law enforcement officers to stop arresting immigrants illegally entering the United States along its southern border.

Larry Dever, the Cochise County sheriff, said that he had been told by federal officials to not arrest immigrants crossing illegally because they wanted to reduce figures for the number of apprehensions at the border.

DHS secretary Napolitano recently cited a reduction of apprehensions along the border as evidence that the border was more secure than ever.

In an interview with Fox News earlier this month, Dever stated that he had been ordered by several Border Patrol officials, including at least one senior supervisor, to turn immigrants around and send them back south instead of arresting them.

In response to the interview, Michael Fisher, the head of U.S. Border Patrol, wrote to Dever refuting his claims.

Fisher said, “That assertion is completely, 100 per cent false. That it comes from a fellow law enforcement official makes it especially offensive.”

According to Dever, however, he has received more than 100 e-mails from fellow law enforcement officials that have firsthand knowledge of government efforts to keep apprehension figures down.

He points to a San Diego border agent who told him, “Upper management has advised supervisors to have agents Turn Back South [TBS] the illegal aliens they detect attempting to unlawfully enter the country … at times you even hear supervisors order the agents over the radio to “TBS” the aliens instead of catching them.”

The agent added, “’This only causes more problems as the aliens, as you know, don’t just go back to Mexico and give up. They keep trying, sometimes without 10 minutes in-between attempts, to cross illegally.’

Another agent bolstered these claims writing, “This is nothing new, during my career with the border patrol, this was done regularly. By assigning agents to different tasks, locations, etc., the apprehensions can be increased or decreased dramatically.”

Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week, Paul Bebau, Sheriff Dever’s top lieutenant, said that he had been directly ordered by border officials to not arrest illegal border crossers in the Tucson sector of the border.

In response to these allegations, U.S. Border Patrol officials issued another statement declaring that such instructions were never given.

In a statement, Jeffrey Self, the commander of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Field Command, said, “As the commander for border enforcement operations in Arizona, I can confirm that the claim that Border Patrol supervisors have been instructed to under- report or manipulate our statistics is unequivocally false.”

He added, “To suggest that we are ambiguous in enforcing our laws belittles the work of more than 6,000 CBP employees in Arizona who dedicate their lives to protect our borders every day.”