Arizona Sheriff: Border Patrol Has Retreated from Parts of Border Because It’s ‘Too Dangerous’

Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Ariz. (Cochise County Sheriff's office photo)

(CNSNews.com) - Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Ariz., one of four Arizona counties contiguous with the U.S-Mexico border, said Friday that the U.S. Border Patrol has pulled back from parts of the border in his and neighboring counties because manning those areas has become too dangerous.
 
“And you frankly have Border Patrolmen--and I know this from talking to Border Patrol agents—who will not allow their agents to work on the border because it is too dangerous,” Dever told CNSNews.com in a videotaped interview. “Now what kind of message is that for crying out loud?”
 


Dever, a native of Cochise County, has been in local law enforcement in the county for three decades. He was elected the county sheriff in 1996.

Dever stressed that the Border Patrolmen are ready and willing to perform their mission of securing the border, but that Border Patrol managers had determined that in “some places” the danger was too great and they wanted to avoid the risk of an international incident such as a cross-border firefight.
 
“Now, I am telling you, the agents, you give them a mission, you tell them what you want them to do, they will go do it,” said Dever. “I mean, these guys for the most part are warriors, they are soldiers.
 
“Then you have middle management and upper management that says: No, it’s too dangerous right there and we’re going to cause an international incident if there’s shooting across the line, back and forth,” said Dever.

Obama Expands Bush Administration Program to Deport Criminal Illegal Aliens

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

President Barack Obama (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama has asked Congress for a 30 percent increase in funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) “Secure Communities” program – a program launched in March 2008 by the Bush administration to help local jails identify inmates who are in the United States illegally so they can be deported when their prison sentences are completed.
 
A 2008 fact sheet about the program reported that ICE, which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security, checked the immigration status of “100 percent” of inmates in state and federal prisons, but only 10 percent of the more than 3,000 local jails in the United States were checking to see if criminals in their facilities were in the country illegally.
 
Obama included in his proposed 2010 budget $200 million for the program, a 30 percent increase from last year’s funding.
 
Congress allocated $1.4 billion for ICE criminal alien enforcement for fiscal year 2009, according to ICE.
 
“Secure Communities” allows local law enforcement access to FBI and ICE fingerprint (biometric) databases for use in determining inmates’ immigration status. Inmates who have not been fingerprinted by federal or state agencies will not be identified through the program.