The reassignment of U.S. Border Patrol agents to the Rio Grande Valley Sector announced on Saturday will leave other areas of the border less secure. Agents are being reallocated to assist with a growing surge of immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Border Patrol officials in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector announced that 150 agents will be temporarily be transferred from the Tucson, San Diego, and Del Rio Sectors to the McAllen and Weslaco Centralized Processing Centers. Their duty will be to increase the screening and processing of the unauthorized immigrants with a focus on UACs (unaccompanied Alien Children) and FMUAs (Family Unit Aliens), according to information obtained from Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Marlene Castro by Breitbart Texas.
The move amounts to “robbing Peter to pay Paul” as officials take agents off the line from sectors with their own immigrant surges.
The sectors are being robbed of agents are having their own surge of illegal immigrants as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials try to make it look like they are doing something in response to the renewed humanitarian crisis along the southern border. The San Diego Sector reported an increase in FMUA apprehensions of 303 percent when comparing FY 2016 and FY 2107 numbers. UAC apprehensions also increased, by 71 percent over the same time period last year. Breitbart Texas reported on October 22 that the San Diego Sector was also dealing with a 600 percent increase of Haitian refugees comparing FY 2016 to the previous year.
The Tucson Sector, from where agents are being moved to Texas, also saw an increase in FMUA apprehensions of 17 percent comparing October 2016 to October 2017. Fortunately, UAC apprehensions were down for the month.
The Del Rio Sector saw a 51 percent increase in FMUA apprehensions during this same comparison period while UAC apprehensions dropped by only five percent.
Several Border Patrol agents have expressed their frustration at being used as “babysitters” to Breitbart Texas. They stated that Mexican cartels have learned they can tie up Border Patrol agents by flooding a region with these children, mostly from Central America. They are then free to move their drug cargo and other “higher value” human cargo through other locations.
“The smugglers learned in 2014 that they could tie up Border Patrol agents as babysitters and keep us from our primary mission of stopping illegal border crossings and drug smuggling,” U.S. Border Patrol Agent Chris Cabrera told Breitbart Texas in his capacity as president of National Border Patrol Council Local 3307 in an interview on October 26. “When are we going to get back on the border?”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.
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