Texas lawman says not 'if,' but 'when,' terrorists bring dirty bomb into U.S.

[Desertdog]

Scary, but gives a glimmer of hope with what the sheriffs are doing.


Border sheriff warns: We're overwhelmed
Texas lawman says not 'if,' but 'when,' terrorists bring dirty bomb into U.S.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47376


Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, Jr, sees the 60 miles of the Texas-Mexico border his deputies patrol as a frontline in the war on terror – his biggest fear is smugglers will bring terrorists and dirty bombs into the U.S. through his county.

Gonzalez, Zapata County's chief lawman and chairman of the Border Sheriff's Association, told a San Antonio conference yesterday it's not a matter of "if," but "when," a terrorist will enter the U.S. through Mexico with a dirty bomb or some other weapon of mass destruction. The fault, Gonzalez said, can be placed on the federal government for failing to protect its borders, San Antonio's WOAI radio reported. "We tried everything we know, with little success, to make the federal government aware of the problems we face and how they have affected us. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security has done nothing to help us," he told the Washington Times last month.

Gonzalez credits federal officials with warning him that al-Qaida terrorists are looking to use smugglers, including the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang to bring terror operatives across the border. Additionally, the sheriff was told, terrorists-in-waiting have been going to Central America to learn Spanish so they will not stand out from other aliens entering the United States.

"If smugglers can bring a hundred people or 2,000 pounds of marijuana into the United States, how simple would it be to bring terrorists into this country, or a suitcase loaded with a dirty bomb?" Gonzalez told the Washington Times last month. "I am very surprised it hasn't already happened."


"Illegal immigration is the least of our concerns," Gonzalez said. "We'll deal with illegal immigration. What I worry about is the dangerously violent narcotics gangs and especially the terrorists. There [are] people from countries of interest to the United States which could easily come over this border. They may already be in the country. We don't know."

The current "catch and release" policy for illegals from countries other than Mexico is "ridiculous," Gonzalez said, noting that all the other 16 Texas-border sheriffs and Border Patrol agents in the field agreed with him.

"Illegal aliens will come across, and once they come across they will even change into better clothing, come out of the brush, and simply surrender to the Border Patrol," he said. "They get processed and they get a certificate telling them to go to a hearing before an immigration judge, and then they let them go. Of course, they don't show up for the hearing."

Gonzalez's beat is made all the tougher by the fact Zapata County is only 50 miles south of Nuevo Laredo, the site of an ongoing war between Mexican drug cartels that has claimed 135 lives in 2005 and is being fought with the help of the Zetas, a gang of Mexican military deserters – heavily armed and trained in the U.S. – providing protection services.

Border sheriffs became so frustrated with the lack of assistance from Washington as well as policies like "catch and release" they formed the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition to speak with a "single voice" on border issues, particularly the need for funding as they commit more time and resources to border security.

"Protecting the border is a national security issue, and it's always been our concern," Gonzalez said. "But each sheriff along the border thought it was just his problem to deal with. But our residents are living in fear. And it's not just happening to one sheriff, but to 16. We used to deal with it in silence. Now, we can speak together."

Gonzalez and most of the other border lawmen are supporting a proposal by Rep. John Culberson (R-Houston) to provide funds for border counties to deputize and train citizens as "reserve officers" to patrol the border, much as volunteers with the Minuteman organization have done.


Meanwhile, House Republicans testified yesterday that illegal immigrants – including those from countries other than Mexico – are overwhelming law enforcement in border communities.

"Gangs and drug traffickers can easily overwhelm small, local law enforcement departments," said Texas Rep. Henry Bonilla. "Imagine if this was happening in your town. You might feel under siege."

New Mexico's Rep. Steve Pearce told members the Border Patrol has captured two illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, two from Indonesia, nine from Iran and one from Syria in his district over the past two years.

That's the kind of information Sheriff Gonzalez says keeps him awake at night.

 

[Texpatriate]

Is there anything preventing The Great State of Texas (may she forever be blessed) from putting up a wall on the border? I have heard a lot of folks talk about the fed.gov needing to do it, but is there anything preventing a state from doing it? Rick Perry, listen up.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I thought Borders was a chain of book shops. Does this mean it's owned by the nation? Eh? What?

 

[HighVelocity]

From today's local newspaper:

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/13157722.htm

Plan for border barrier gains momentum

By DAVE MONTGOMERY

Star-Telegram Washington Bureau


As mayor of Eagle Pass, Chad Foster presides over a thriving Texas border town that takes pride in a robust economy, a spectacular view of the Rio Grande and a warm relationship with Piedras Negras, its municipal neighbor and trading partner across the river in Mexico.

Now talk out of Washington has Foster worried.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, a powerful California Republican, wants to build a security wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, an old idea with new momentum in the security-minded post-9-11 era.

Hunter envisions a barrier stretching across four states, from the Pacific Coast in California to the Gulf Coast in Texas, following a 1,951-mile route that presumably would edge along Foster's riverside town of 25,000.

"It's going to be a waste of time and money in this citizen's opinion," said Foster, a 56-year-old real estate developer who has lived in Eagle Pass most of his life. "It's going to antagonize my relationship with my friends and neighbors in Mexico."

Foster is hardly alone in his dissent. Hunter's proposal and similar plans have also stirred an outcry from an array of other critics, including the Mexican government and environmentalists. The Bush administration, while supporting limited fencing along troublesome segments of the border, has signaled an aversion to a border-length barrier.

"The president is aware of the concerns of critics who would like to build a wall around the United States," Tony Garza, President Bush's ambassador to Mexico, told reporters in Mexico City on Thursday. "As a former governor of Texas, he knows that such proposals are both unrealistic and undesirable."

Security concerns

Despite the high-level opposition, polls suggest that the idea of a border barrier is gaining currency among a rapidly growing segment of Americans who worry that potential terrorists could be among the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants entering the United States.

"This is no longer an immigration issue," said Hunter, who represents a border area district in Southern California that includes parts of San Diego County. "This is a national security issue."

A poll of 1,500 adults conducted Nov. 4-6 by Rasmussen Reports, a New Jersey-based company, found 60 percent in favor of building the barrier and 26 percent opposed.

An informal survey of Texas lawmakers showed mixed opinions. The state's two senators and a number of Republican House members, including several in North Texas, say they might support fencing along portions of the border but not its entire length. Some Democrats vehemently oppose the idea, although the government-sanctioned fencing programs were created by Democratic President Bill Clinton's administration.

For years, the border has had long stretches of flimsy barbed-wire fences, but the structures being debated now are 10- to 12-foot-high solid-steel and galvanized-steel-mesh fences designed to stop even the most determined illegal immigrants.

Critics counter that criminals wanting to cross the border will find ways to get under, over or around barriers.

More than 80 miles of federally enforced barriers and fencing have been erected at strategic points on the border - including Hunter's district, as well as segments near El Paso and Laredo - but proposals for a full-length fence have historically gone nowhere. The political dynamics, however, appear to be shifting in the post-9-11 era.

As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Hunter is positioned to throw a hefty dose of power behind his border security project. Moreover, he has the backing of a newly formed citizens lobby - WeNeedAFence.com - and a budding grassroots movement.

"Our message is getting out there on a national basis," said Colin Hanna, a former county commissioner in West Chester, Pa., who heads WeNeedAFence.com. "Support for it is building extremely fast."

Hanna, who is also president of Let Freedom Ring, which advances conservative social issues, formed the pro-fence lobby in October. Since then, he has visited the offices of 38 House members and three senators, commissioned a public relations firm and promoted his cause through TV ads and interviews.

As of late last week, more than 10,470 people had signed an Internet petition on the group's Web site endorsing a border barrier, Hanna said.

Hunter proposed the fence as part of a comprehensive border enforcement package that would also create 25 additional ports of entry, add thousands of Border Patrol agents and increase fines against employers who hire illegal immigrants. It would extend the double fence now in his district across the remainder of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Cost projections for the barrier range from $2 billion to $8 billion.

The barrier would stretch through population centers as well as treacherous desert and mountain terrain, presenting its planners with an immense set of obstacles, including right-of-way issues, inevitable environmental challenges and potential eminent domain proceedings to allow the government to seize land.

An estimated 11.8 million people live along the border - 6.3 million in the United States and 5.5 million in Mexico. More than 90 percent of the border population is clustered in 14 sister cities.

A sizable share of the land is government-owned, including Big Bend National Park, which sprawls across 801,000 acres in Southwest Texas. But Jeff Holgren, an official in the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, says as much as 50 percent may be privately owned, including vast ranchlands along the border.

Cost issues

Hunter, in a telephone interview last week, said he believes that the fence can be erected "very quickly" through simultaneous construction projects all along the border. He estimates the cost at $1 million per mile but concedes that the project would go through some "tough geographical areas," forcing the price to go up.

But Hunter said the construction costs represent only a fraction of the billions of dollars that taxpayers spend on services for the estimated 11 million immigrants now in the country illegally. The California lawmaker also points to the success of the border fence in his home district.

Built at Hunter's insistence more than a decade ago, the barrier consists of a 10-foot-high primary wall composed of steel portable landing strips used by the military. A reinforced steel-mesh fence runs parallel to that barrier, with high-powered lighting and a road in between that enables Border Patrol agents to maintain constant surveillance for illegal crossers.

Under a border security measure passed this year, the government is moving to complete a final 3 61/27 -mile stretch in a canyon known as "Smugglers Gulch."

The REAL ID Act empowered the homeland security secretary to override environmental and legal challenges that had stalled completion of the segment.

Before the barrier was erected, the dusty stretch of border between San Ysidro, Calif., and Tijuana, Mexico, was a crime-infested wasteland where bandits preyed on illegal immigrants crossing into the United States and often hurled grapefruit-size rocks at Border Patrol agents.

"The border was out of control," recalled Mario Villarreal, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman who was assigned to the area as an agent in the 1980s. "It was very, very chaotic."

With the creation of the barrier and with beefed-up enforcement, federal officials have seen apprehensions decrease dramatically, enabling the San Diego sector to escape its dubious distinction as the leading sector for arrests. The number of arrests for fiscal 2005, which ended Sept. 30, totaled 126,910, compared with a peak of 629,650 in 1986.

Nevertheless, the more tenacious crossers, including smugglers and gang members, remain undaunted. Villarreal says they try every conceivable tactic, including ladders, human pyramids, grappling hooks and tunnels - sometimes successfully, but often not.

Silvestre Reyes, who is now a Democratic member of Congress, helped pioneer the Border Patrol's successful use of barriers when he was a Border Patrol chief in El Paso in 1993. In a crackdown known as Operation Blockade, Reyes diverted patrol officers to a show of force along the border and erected a fence that remains in place today.

Within six months, the number of illegal immigrants dropped from 10,000 to 100 per day, immigration authorities said.

Over the past decade, federal officials have erected additional fencing, mostly in heavily populated areas. The steel landing mats such as those used in Hunter's district are the most commonly used material.

Hunter would use the twin-fence concept as the blueprint for his national barrier, but Hanna, of WeNeedAFence.com, proposes a more elaborate combination.

Starting from the southern side, it would include a pyramid of barbed wire, a ditch and a 15-foot-high fence topped with cameras. The pattern would be repeated on the other side, with a patrol road in between.

Berlin Wall?

Opponents say adding the barrier would place the equivalent of the Berlin Wall in the lower part of the United States, darkening America's image as a welcoming nation. Others also fear that additional barriers in urban areas could force an increasing number of Mexicans to make perilous and potentially lethal journeys through the harsh desert.

"We're trying to export democracy to other countries, and here we are building a wall," said Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi. "Is that democracy?"

Environmentalists say a border-length barrier would also shrink - if not destroy - the habitat of wildlife that roam freely back and forth across the border. Mary Kelly of Austin, a program director for Environmental Defense, a national conservation organization, called the proposal "insane."

The reaction from the other side of border was similarly unreceptive.

"Fences don't make good neighbors," Mexican President Vicente Fox has said repeatedly.

Despite mounting pressure on Capitol Hill to toughen border security, many lawmakers aren't ready to fully embrace a full-length border barrier.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who heads a subcommittee on immigration, calls a full-length fence a "19th-century answer to a 21st-century problem,'' though he said through a spokesman that he might embrace limited fencing.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has also endorsed the idea of fences in areas plagued by illegal immigration but expressed concern that a barrier along the entire border could infringe on property rights.

"There are areas I think that could really benefit from a fence," said Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, who made a border inspection near Laredo last weekend, along with North Texas colleague Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell.

Marchant, though a co-sponsor of the Hunter proposal, said he believes that a well-patrolled "good road" along the border would deter illegal immigrants.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, said he would support limited fencing, but not all along the border. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Flower Mound, said he supports the concept of Hunter's proposal but wants to take a closer look at the bill.

Then there are relentless advocates like Hanna, who believes that a barrier stretching from the Pacific to the Gulf must be a vital element of any plan to shore up the southern border and build a wall against terrorism.

"If you don't include that as one of your components," he said, "then your plan - literally and figuratively - has a hole in it."

IN THE KNOW

Building a fence

Pros

Supporters believe that a fence is the only way to protect the border. CIA and FBI officials say terrorists and violent drug gangs may be entering the United States, along with undocumented workers.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R.-Calif., believes that the estimated cost of the fence - a minimum of about $1 million per mile, for a total of about $2 billion - is far less than the tens of billions of dollars a year he says the United States spends to fight the drug trade and illegal immigration along the border.

Cons

Opponents believe that anyone wanting to cross the border would find a way around, over or under the fence and that it sends a negative message to Mexico and the world that the United States wants to wall itself in.

Critics argue that the fence would have economic and environmental consequences and that more illegal immigrants are dying trying to enter through remote areas with extreme weather and violent drug gangs and smugglers.

Knight Ridder Mexico City correspondent Susana Hayward and Star-Telegram news researchers Marcia Melton and Adam Barth contributed to this report.

 

[dracphelan]

Is there anything preventing The Great State of Texas (may she forever be blessed) from putting up a wall on the border? I have heard a lot of folks talk about the fed.gov needing to do it, but is there anything preventing a state from doing it? Rick Perry, listen up.

Money, where do you propose the state get the money from. If I remember correctly, the Texas portion of the US border with Mexico is a third of the entire length.
In Texas, we can't even agree on an equitable state funding agreement for public schools. And, they are converting paid for state highways to toll roads to pay for other road projects. The state does not have the money to build a wall.

IMNSHO, instead of a wall, we should lay minefields anywhere there isn't a legal border crossing.

 

[Selfdfenz]

I think Rick and other's in Austin have their mind on stuff other than the schools and the border....like the Rick Perry $uper toll road.

S-

 

[Texpatriate]

oops.

 

[Manedwolf]

The problem is that terrorists have absolutely no reason to risk smuggling crap across the border.

Go to any port city and check out the freight areas. Look at all the ships with rusty cargo containers on deck, from blocks-long container ships to smaller ones from hundreds of obscure nameless third-world wherevers. Those containers, hundreds of thousands per DAY, are filled with everything from cheap made-in-China toys and electronics to bananas.

And they're not checked. It would be so, so, so simple for anyone to hide a dirty bomb or a U-235 collision device under the bananas in one of, say, 500 containers transferred from ship to ship to port.

I'm just surprised THAT hasn't happened yet. Or maybe it has and it got in successfully, who knows?

But to me, that's the weak link in security.

 

[walking arsenal]

BLAAAAMMMM!!!!

"You hear that? Smells like *sniff *Sniff Banana bread.

 

[wingman]

"It's going to be a waste of time and money in this citizen's opinion," said Foster, a 56-year-old real estate developer who has lived in Eagle Pass most of his life. "It's going to antagonize my relationship with my friends and neighbors in Mexico."

I'm sorry Mr Mayor how would the fence antagonize your friends in Mexico
if all come legal across the international bridge the correct legal way.

 

[rick_reno]

I wouldn't worry about this border-illegal immigration problem. President Bush has a solution to fix it.

 

[GunnySkox]

I wouldn't worry about this border-illegal immigration problem. President Bush has a solution to fix it.

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not. Either way, I'm giggling like a stoned schoolgirl.

~GnSx

 

[WT]

Manedwolf - according to the US Navy website, today we have a mere 34,345 sailors deployed while 472,344 more sailors sit around drinking coffee.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could transfer 300,000 to the Coast Guard and have them check out the containers coming into New York, Los Angeles, etc????

 

[Double Naught Spy]

DesertDog, I do not see your point. So what if some podunk elected lawman believes terrorists will bring a dirty bomb into the US as opposed to being concerned "if" terrorists bring one in?

Have you been to Zapata County, Texas? It is a pretty rural place. As of the 2000 Census, there were only 12,182 people in the entire county. The sheriff may be the lead LEO in the country, only because few towns in the county are incorporated.

Contrary to the article, Zapata County isn't really on the front line of anything. Zapata doesn't even have a major border crossing point.

Gonzalez is doing nothing more but getting on the overhyped terrorist paranoia bandwagon. For a person so concerned about dirty bombs, how many radiation detectors do you think the Sheriff's office there owns? He says illegal aliens are the least of his concerns, but you can't blame him since he is about as concerned with illegal aliens as other border towns. That means that either they don't have the time and manpower to deal with it, or that they are not bothered with it until something goes wrong, such as when illegals break into homes.

Sure, illegal weapons are a concern, but I would be a lot more impressed if Gonzalez was actually able to keep his border free of illegal aliens, but he can't anymore than sheriff's at every other border county. He is worried about terrorists bringing in materials for a dirty bomb, but if he can't stop the illegal aliens that he claims he can handle just fine, then he can't stop dirty bomb materials.

I believe the committee he heads is larger than his entire department.