Fence will channel border crossings

Amanda Carpenter:

While Department of Homeland Security is working toward erecting a 370-mile fence along the southern border by 2008, there has been an increase in assaults made on U.S. Border Patrol Agents by illegal aliens.

In the four day span between July 8 and July 12, 11 assaults were committed against Border Patrol Agents, including two shootings and one “vehicular assault.”

Between February 1, 2005 and June 30, 2007, Border Patrol Agents reported 1,982 assault incidents. Border Patrol Agents responded to these assaults with deadly force on 116 occasions. On those 116 occasions, 144 agents fired a weapon.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar was on Capitol Hill Tuesday to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the sentencing of former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. Both of them were sentenced to jail for more than a decade after incorrectly reporting they fired a firearm at and struck an illegal alien who was smuggling drugs from Mexico.

Of the uptick in attacks made against agents, Aguilar said, “I attribute this increase in violence to the fact that the Border Patrol achievements in gaining greater and expanded control of our border had resulted in greater reluctance of entrenched criminal organizations to give up areas in which they have historically operated—in some cases with impunity due to lack of enforcement presence or reluctance to give up areas where they have reestablished themselves in reaction to increased urban enforcement efforts.”

Border Agents arrested more than 1.1 million illegal aliens and seized more than 1.3 million pounds of narcotics in the last year.

U.S. Custom and Border Enforcement Spokesman Michael Friel said in a phone interview that border “fencing gives agents more of an upper hand.”

“It slows down illegal activity. It’s an impediment, it’s an obstacle,” he said. Friel also said it was important to have the “right number of agents and proper technology,” in addition to a fence.

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I think he is right about the effect of a fence. It inconveniences the people trying to infiltrate into the country and makes it more likely that we can stop them. The information on the weapons use increasing by border agents may be a result of the poor judgment shown by prosecutors in prosecuting the border agents who shot a fleeing drug mule. That case probably led the bad guys to think that they could get a way with attacking and fleeing arrest by the border agents.