This weekend, AP reported: “A gunbattle erupted between Mexican police and gunmen near the Rio Grande on Saturday, killing one person and prompting U.S. authorities to close a highway that runs along the border in El Paso,… The gunmen attacked a municipal police patrol… in Ciudad Juarez…”
On Monday San Antonio’s Express-News reported: “Unmanned aircraft and new agents deployed to Texas and Southwestern states will provide blanket surveillance to better secure the border and clear the way for Congress to tackle immigration reform, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said… “It gives us the capacity to have 24/7 air coverage along the entire Texas border,” she said.”
(Clearly the drone deployment is a feint to convince Americans that the border is now secure and we should now all embrace some form of amnesty.)
The U.S. Border Patrol, which began in 1924 in El Paso with 450 officers on horseback, is now well over 18,000 agents strong with over 6000 added in the past few years. But, I ask: What’s the point?
Just a week ago, we learned that the there are foot-bridges which cross the Rio Grande into Texas which are unguarded. Just because the International Boundary and Water Commission says they are not officially bridges doesn’t change the fact that people walk across them and enter the county illegally each day.
What good is all the increased spending if we’re not serious enough about stopping illegal immigration that we will arrange to watch and guard bridges into Texas?
Robert Pratt is host of the top-rated Pratt on Texas radio program which can be heard at www.PrattonTexas.com
